On Monday, Albanian authorities handed over hard drives and computers seized from the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) to their Iranian counterparts.
Albania has no diplomatic relations with Iran. Despite this, a series of recent moves against the opposition MEK, which operates in exile, has led many to wonder whether these actions are linked to the ongoing nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran.
"There are negotiations between Iran and the EU and Iran the US. It is easy for me to believe that Iran brings up the MEK issue with the West," Armin Montazeri, foreign policy editor at Ham-Mihan, an Iranian newspaper, told Middle East Eye.
Montazeri said he suspected that Iran and the US have "already reached some sort of agreement" about the MEK, which was unlikely to be publicly announced.
On 20 June, Albanian law enforcement raided the MEK's Ashraf 3 camp, citing concerns that the base northwest of the capital Tirana was being used for subversive political activities, cyberattacks against Iran and mass online trolling of opponents, in contravention of an agreement struck between the MEK and the Albanian government.