IRAN STAY CALM AS ANTI AMERICAN FERVOURS MOUNT IN ARAB AND MUSLIM NATIONS
TEHRAN 10 Oct. (IPS) As Iranian clerical leaders continued Tuesday to denounced the joint American-British strikes over Afghanistan and police clashed in many Muslim capitals with anti-American, anti-British demonstrators, killing at last six people in Pakistan and in the Palestinian-controlled Gaza strip, Tehran and other major Iranian cities were reported calm.
"The big difference between Iran and other Muslim nation is that in this country, the people, in sharp contrast with their regime, feel a real sympathy with the Americans, but in other Arab and Muslim countries, from Indonesia to Cairo and Gaza, the people are fiercely against America while the governments have to adopt a friendly, if not neutral position", one French analyst commented for Iran Press Service.
In a speech pronounced in meeting with the Friday preachers, President Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami called on the United States and Britain to stop their military operations in Afghanistan.
"One must not use the pretext of combating terrorism to kill thousands of innocent people", Mr. Khatami said, adding that the strikes over Taleban positions and Osama Ben Laden’s camps has created a "human tragedy", the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
Though he was much more cautious in his address than Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the staunchly anti-American leader of the Islamic Republic, in attacking the United States, yet, he also condemned the "killing" of "innocent, defenceless Muslim people" of the war-torn Afghanistan.
In meeting the same Friday preachers, Mr. Khameneh’i blasted the US and the UK for their attacks on Afghanistan, saying these "horrendous strikes" showed the "criminal and violent nature" of the Americans and the British.
"Why should the poor Afghan people pay for the crimes committed by others", Mr. Khatami said, in an obvious reference to Mr. Ben Laden, the prime suspect believed to be behind the 11 September terrorist operations in New York and in Washington D.C.
"Regardless of (the state) of our relations with Washington and regardless of political considerations, moral urges us to defend the innocents who come to suffer, for whatever reasons", Mr. Khatami stated.
As Mr. Khatami was calling on the American and the British to stop their war in Afghanistan, the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced from Washington that the strikes would continue "unabated".
He also reiterated that in its efforts to uproot international terrorism, the United States might attack other countries as well, stopping short in naming them.
Like Ayatollah Khameneh’i, who, in an earlier speech, had "absolved" terrorist operations in Israel and killing of the Israelis, Mr. Khatami too, but without naming, labelled Judaism as favouring terrorism.
"Islam and Christianism are strangers to terrorism and both faiths have declared that the phenomenon must be fought", President Khatami observed, not mentioning Judaism, the first and "mother" of the major monotheist religions.
Yet, he called for a "firm and bold" action against those who uses Islam for their "criminal deeds".
On the political situation of Afghanistan, Mr. Khatami said it was up to the Afghan people to decide for their future, but called on all international organisations to do their "utmost" in restoring peace in the war-shattered Asian nation.
Asked to explain the differences between the leader and the president of the Islamic Republic in dealing with the Afghan situation and the American war on international terrorism, one Iranian analyst said while to conservatives, led by the leader, are to use the situation to gather an "islamist international" against the United States, Mr. Khatami, on the other hand, favours the adoption of an "active neutrality" that would help Iran improve its relations with the outside world, particularly with Washington. ENDS KHATAMI AFQAN STRIKES 101001