WASHINGTON, July 26 (AFP) - The United States on Monday confirmed it had granted protected status to nearly 4,000 members of the People's Mujahadeen, Iran's main armed opposition group, now confined to a military-run camp in Iraq.
However, the State Department stressed that the move, which has drawn a warning from Tehran, had no effect on the US designation of the group -- also known as the Mujahadeen e Khalq (MEK) or National Council of Resistance of Iran -- as a "foreign terrorist organization."
"The 3,800 members of the MEK that are in (Camp) Ashraf have been granted protected persons status," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said, adding that the move gives the militants rights under the Geneva Conventions but would not shield them from eventual prosecution on possible terrorism charges.
"This does not relate to their membership in a terrorist organization," Ereli told reporters.
"The MEK continues to be a designated foreign terrorist organization," he said. "We will continue to treat individuals who can be determined to have been involved in terrorist incidents with the MEK consistent with the laws that apply."
Ereli noted that each of the 3,800 militia members were now being vetted to determine if they had been involved in terrorist incidents and those implicated in attacks would be dealt with under applicable laws.
Earlier Monday, Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh gave a cautious warning to the United States against making any concessions towards the group, which Tehran refers to as "hypocrites."
"The attitude towards the hypocrites in Iraq will show the truth of the claims from anybody who claims to be fighting terrorism globally," he said.
Iran has been pushing for repatriation of the several thousand Mujahedeen fighters under US military guard at Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad, and last December Iraq's coalition-installed leadership voted unanimously to expel them.
The People's Mujahedeen set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.
The group also participated in Saddam Hussein's crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.
Several thousand Mujahedeen militiamen were disarmed by US forces following the fall of president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and barred from undertaking military operations.
Ereli said the protected status, announced by the group in Paris on Sunday, had been accorded to the militants because they had been classified as "non-belligerents" during last year's US-led invasion of Iraq.
"It was determined that they were not belligerents, and therefore as non-belligerents fall into this category with respect to the conflict with Iraq," he said.