IRAN REACTED CAUTIOUSLY TO US EASING ECONOMIC SANCTIONS
By Nina Kamran, IPS Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON 17TH March ((IPS) As expected, the United States announced Friday the lifting of ban on some Iranian non-oil but famous goods such as caviar, carpets and pistachio but kept intact the sanctions on vital Iranian oil products.
President Clinton extended the ban on Monday, citing Iran's support for "international terrorism," its alleged attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction and its opposition to Middle East peace talks, Washington's three conditions for normalising relations with Islamic Republic of Iran.
''Today I am announcing a step that will enable Americans to purchase and import carpets and food products such as dried fruits, nuts and caviar from Iran,'' the US State secretary Mrs. Madeleine Albright told the American Iranian Council (AIC) in Washington, explaining that "this step was a logical extension of the adjustments the United States made last year and designed to show the millions of Iranian craftsmen, farmers and fishermen who work in these industries, and the Iranian people as a whole, that the United States bears them no ill will''.
In their first reaction to the new step, Iranians, both officials and prominent political analysts welcomed the decision, but regretted that not only it did not go far enough to bring down the "wall of mistrust", but confirmed the US policy of "stick and carrots".
Relations between the United States and Iran were cut after Iranians, led by some students stormed the sprawling American Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and took 54 US diplomats and other servicemen as hostages for 444 days.
"We welcome the decision that would allow Iran to export foodstuffs and carpets and see it as positive", the senior Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Iran's official news agency IRNA.
Dr. Sadeq Ziba Kalam, a Professor of Political Science at Tehran University and adviser to President Mohammad Khatami described Mrs. Albright's speech as "important", but noted that it would not bring any fundamental change in Tehran-Washington's strained relations.
"One has to expect harsher attitude from forces hostile to (President Khatani's policy of) détente, however, there is no other way out of the tunnel but détente", he told the Persian service of the BBC.
Iran's UN Ambassador Hadi Nezhad Hosseinian also called the U.S. steps as "positive". "I wish to stress, however, that these steps, as important and refreshing as they may be, are insufficient to make a quick and drastic change in the state of affairs between the two countries" he told the same audience that included several top Iranian and American diplomats, analysts, businessmen and journalists.
The prospect of improved U.S.-Iran relations is "still heavily contingent on American willingness and ability to change its policies toward Iran," Mr. Nezhad Hosseinian said, citing the "humiliating" fingerprinting of Iranians at US airports as if they were common criminals".
This was in answer to Mrs. Albrights pledge that United States would explore ways to remove unnecessary impediments to increased contacts between American and Iranian scholars, professionals, artists, athletes and non-governmental organisations. "We believe this will serve to deepen bonds of mutual understanding and trust", she said.
In another move intended to reduce hostilities, Albright said the United States is willing to work with Iran to settle legal claims the two nations have against each other.
''Third, the US is prepared to increase efforts with Iran aimed at eventually concluding a global settlement of outstanding legal claims between our two countries.''
Most of the claims were settled through a special Iran-America Tribunal installed in The Hague in 1981.
''Our goal now is to settle the relatively few, but very substantial, claims that are still outstanding between our two governments at The Hague and by so doing, to put this issue behind us once and for all", she explained.
However, she realistically pointed out that Washington has "no illusions" the two sides could "overcome decades of estrangement overnight, adding that a mature relationship can't be build on carpets and grain alone.
In her address, Albright also admitted, without apologising though, past US "meddling" in Iran's internal affairs, including the CIA-backed coup that overthrew the government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq, the ruling mollah's "bete noire" in 1953 and installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi back to his throne until the Islamic revolution of 1979.
''In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's poplar Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. The Eisenhower Administration believed the actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see how many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs,'' Mrs. Albright accepted.
She also described as "short sighted" Washington's support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.
On the other hand, she recalled that US hostility to the Islamic Republic has its roots in the take over of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and the holding of Americans seized there hostage in what she called a "disgraceful breech" of traditional diplomatic practice.
"The United States is willing either to proceed patiently, on a step-by-step basis, or to move very rapidly if Iran indicates a desire and commitment to do so'', she said.
''Let us be open about our differences and strive to overcome them.
''Let us acknowledge our common interests and strive to advance them.
''Let us think boldly about future possibilities and strive to achieve them and thereby turn this new year and season of hope into the reality of a safer and better life for our two peoples", she went on, referring to Norouz, the Iranian New Year that starts on 20th March.
''Next Monday will mark the beginning of a New Year for Iran and the start of spring for us all. If it is true that for everything under heaven there is a season, surely the time has come for America and Iran to enter a new season in which mutual trust may grow and a quality of warmth supplant the long cold winter of our mutual discontent", she proposed.
However, and to Iranians desolation, Mrs. Albright reiterated US charges that Iran sponsors terrorism, seeks weapons of mass destruction, opposes the Middle East Peace Process and persecutes religious minorities.
"By playing back this old song, Mrs. Albright did what is known in Iran as the 90 litres milk cow" pointed out a Paris-based Iranian analyst, referring to an old Persian proverb about a milk cow that after giving all her milk would give a kick to the bucket splashing all the milk on the ground.
''The points I have made and the concrete measures I have announced today respond to the broader perspective merited by the democratic trends in Iran and to our hope that these internal changes will gradually produce external effects", she added.
"We want to work together with Iran to bring down what President Khatami refers to as the wall of mistrust", she said, adding: ''We look forward to Iran truly fulfilling its promise to serve as an anchor of stability and to live up in deed as well as word to the pledges its leaders have made in such areas and proliferation and opposition to terrorism".
In Washington, the US overtures were seen as "the most far-reaching attempt" by the Clinton administration to improve ties with Iran and aimed at strengthening the hands of President Mohammed Khatami in the aftermath of the recent Legislative elections that gave his supporters the control of the next Majles.
Even the partial lifting of U.S. sanctions could provide a boost to the weak Iranian economy, said Geoffrey Kemp of the Nixon Centre.
"I think (Washington) needed to do something," he told CNN. "The pistachios, carpets and caviar may not be terribly important for the United States, but they are very important for a lot of Iranians because these are export earners and the Iranian economy is in terrible shape".
(One Iranian economist noted sarcastically that export of Iranian pistachio is monopolised by the family of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president).
But the biggest prize for Iran is persuading the United States to lift the ban on U.S. investment in Iran's oil and gas industry, which dominates the paralysed economy.
"I think American (oil and gas) companies are itching to do (business with Iran) because they see the European firms getting a head start on them in the energy sector," CNN quoted Mr. Shaul Bakhash, professor of history at George Mason University near Washington and an expert on Iranian politics.
Friday's speeches by Albright and Hosseinian were sponsored by the American Iranian Council. The private group based in Princeton, New Jersey, seeks better relations between Washington and Tehran.
Mr. Robert Pelletreau, chairman of the Council and a former U.S. ambassador in the Middle East, said the lifting of sanctions on Iran's non-oil exports was just one step along the road to reconciliation and that dialogue may have to wait a while.
"The American administration is recognising the results of the elections as a positive development and they're signalling a positive development in return, but this is all part of a very slow process," he said.
"It's a question of unwinding and unravelling a whole lot of obstructions on both sides, and we shouldn't expect dramatic breakthroughs on either side," he added. IRAN US 17300