Some 400 Iranian exiles arrived Saturday at a new camp approved by the United Nations near Baghdad, as part of larger process of moving more than 3,000 exiles from their camp in northeast of Baghdad, an official TV channel reported.

"Some 400 Iranian opposition members living in New Iraq Camp ( also known as Camp Ashraf) in northeast Baghdad arrived in the morning at a new location named Camp Hurriya near Baghdad," the state-run channel of Iraqia said.

Camp Hurriya (or Liberty) is a former U.S. military base, located near the Baghdad airport in southwest of the capital.

Most of the camp Ashraf residents are members of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran, also known as Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO).

The self-claimed Marxist and Islamic movement was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah of Iran. It subsequently fought to oust the Islamic regime that took power in the 1979 revolution. The group fled to Iraq in 1986 and set up Ashraf Camp northeast of Baghdad about 80 km from the Iranian border.

Currently, more than 3,000 Iranians and their families live in the camp.

On December 25 last year, the Iraqi government and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq struck a deal to move the camp residents in Diyala province to Baghdad temporarily until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will get the refugees resettled in a third country.

After the MKO fighters were disarmed following the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq, the camp had been under the protection of the U. S. military for five years before the Iraqi government took over its security.

Ties between Shiite Iran and Iraq, whose government is now dominated by Shiites, have picked up considerably since the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003.

Iraq and Iran fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, causing the loss of one million lives.