Brussels, 03/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - Eleven groups and six people have been added to the European list of terrorist organisations: these are the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK, Turkey) and the Kurdish Popular Revolutionary Party (DHKP-C, Turkey); the Khalq Mujahidin Organisation (MKO, Iranian opposition group, financed by Iraq, but its political wing, the Iranian National Resistance Council is not, for its part, considered s terrorist); the group Aum Shinrikyo (Japan, responsible for the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo metro); Babbar Khalsa (India, separatist Sikh group); the Basque group of Askatasuna (Spain, linked to ETA); Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Egypt, Islamic movement); the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), the Lashkar Tayyba (LET, based in Pakistan, implicated in the war in Kashmir); Shining Path (SP, Peru), the United Self-Defence Forces of Columbia (AUC). The individuals added to the list are members of ETA, like most terrorist already designated in the first list. These are: Berasategui Escudero Ismael (ETA activist, member of K. Behorburu); Gallastegui Sodupe Lexuri (ETA activist, member of K. Madrid); Palacios Alday Gorka (ETA activist; member of K. Madrid); Quintana Zorrouzua Asier (ETA activist: member of K. Madrid); Rubenach Roig Juan Luis (ETA activist; member of K. Madrid) and Zubiaga Bravo Manex (ETA activist, member of K. Madrid). These organisations and activists are added to the twenty-nine activists and fourteen organisation already on the list approved by the Fifteen on 27 December (see EUROPE of 1 May). The complete list has been published in the Official Journal of the Communities of 3 May.
EU Council President Josep Piqué has told Washington that the revision of the list was not yet over. Spain still insists on the inclusion of Batasuna on the list. The United States is also applying pressure for the inclusion of several groups including Hezbollah. The Fifteen are also discussing the Palestinian FPLP and the Colombian Farc, but for now there is no consensus for designating them as terrorists. You may recall that although the texts of 27 December impose a general obligation to freeze the assets of the terrorists, there is only a binding and detailed list for terrorists acting outside the Union.