Banned Iranian group urges fast EU ruling

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A banned Iranian opposition group urged the European Union on Tuesday to follow Britain in dropping it from a list of outlawed terrorist organizations.

British parliament approved on Monday an order to remove the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) from Britain's own sanctions list in line with an earlier High Court ruling that the ban was wrong.

Dowlat Nourozi of the PMOI's political arm said Britain had been behind the EU blacklisting of the group in the first place and the change of policy meant its inclusion on an EU list of groups facing asset freezes no longer made sense.

"It is time for them (the EU) to take strong and immediate action to take the PMOI off the list," Nourozi told a news conference in Brussels.

The call comes at a sensitive time for diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program, which major powers in the U.N. Security suspect is a cover for efforts to acquire an atom bomb. Iran denies this.

EU ministers had been due to decide on the PMOI's status last week but diplomats said the move was postponed on June 12 pending the British parliament decision.

That averted a potential row with Tehran days ahead of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's June 14 trip to Iran, when he delivered a revised offer by major powers of cooperation if Iran agrees to curb its nuclear program.

Iran has still not replied to the offer and EU states agreed on Monday to impose new sanctions on Iran, including a ban on its biggest bank doing business in Europe, in a move which Tehran said could hurt efforts to find a diplomatic solution.

An EU official said the 27-member bloc regularly reviewed the list and that, while there was no fixed date, the next review could take place in coming weeks. He noted that decisions to change the list had to be taken by consensus.

The PMOI began as a leftist-Islamist opposition to the late shah of Iran but fell out with Shi'ite clerics who took power after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Western analysts say it has little support inside Iran because it joined Iraqi forces during the 1980-88 war between the two neighbors. The group, which exposed Iran's covert nuclear program in 2002, is also banned by the United States.

(Reporting by Mark John, editing by Paul Taylor)