Tehran, June 18: Iran today again reacted cautiously to a major crackdown in France on the leading Iranian armed opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen, making no immediate demand for extradition of those arrested. When asked if the Islamic republic would demand that the detained members of the group -- enemy number one for the Iranian authorities -- be handed over, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi declined to comment.
However, he did assert Iran's commitment to "continuing cooperation" in anti-terrorist operations with the international community.
"The Islamic republic is determined to continue, as in the past, our cooperation in the war against terrorism," said Asefi.
Iran has been accused by the United States of harbouring al-Qaeda fugitives.
Yesterday, Iran welcomed as a "positive step" the massive raids by French anti-terrorist police, in which more than 150 members of the People's Mujahedeen were detained.
With a program that combines left-wing and Islamic ideology, the People's Mujahedeen took part in the 1979 revolution in Iran, but the movement was suppressed in the years that followed and its members fled abroad.
Under the leadership of Massoud Rajavi, whose wife Maryam was among those held yesterday, the military wing took refuge in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, from where it organized attacks inside Iran. Bureau Report