Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for your testimony, Ms. Martin. I'm going to deal only with the issue of protection, not the issue of delisting. That is the imminent issue before us.
In November, the Iraqi embassy in Brussels notified the European Parliament of the vision of the Iraqi government on the issue of Camp Ashraf in a 10-point official document. The European Parliament's response, through its president, was that the document was disingenuous and illegal in its entirety, it amounted to a virtual declaration of war on the UN and the international community, and it was a death warrant for the residents of Ashraf. I'm not going to go into the 10-point official document, only the two points that relate to your testimony.
The first point in your testimony is where you say:
The Iraqi government has demonstrated its willingness to cooperate with EU states, the United States, Iraq's neighbours, and Iran in order to resettle Ashrafi residents outside Iraq.
The response by the European Parliament on this point is that the Iraqi government has deliberately ignored the extensive efforts of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN assistance missions in Iraq, the European Union, and the United States, who have bent over backwards to reach a peaceful solution to the Ashraf issues involving the resettlement of its residents but have been blocked at every turn by the Iraqi government. The document is a blatant effort to set the stage for the massacre of Ashraf residents.
The second point that you mentioned, and with this I'll close, was that the Government of Iraq has also allowed international organizations, such as the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, UNAMI, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to visit the camp on a very regular basis to monitor living conditions, to facilitate communications with family members, and to provide supplies for the residents.
This is the response by the president of the European Parliament:
It appears as if the massacre of 47 residents, wounding of more than 1,000 others, the barbaric three-year siege of Ashraf, and the denial of medical facilities causing the painful death of sick and wounded patients, is according to the Iraqi Government an integral part of the principles of human rights enshrined in international law.
They made some reference to that in their document as well.
There appears to be a variance between the European Parliament's assessment of the Iraqi position and your assessment of it in the two references that I mentioned today. Can you comment on that?