IRAN FORMS SPECIAL GROUP FOR OPENING TALKS WITH AMERICA
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
PARIS 15 Apr. (IPS) Iran has decided to form a special group mandated to look at "ways and means" to open talks with the great US "Stan", breaking a 23 years of taboo, according to well informed sources.
"The formation of the group has been approved by Ayatollah Ali
Khameneh'i who has charged Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to supervise
the delicate and highly complex, controversial and emotion-bound operations,
making sure that the conservatives keep the monopoly of the initiative",
the source told Iran Press Service on condition of anonymity.
"There is no smoke without fire", IPS source said, explaining that the reason for the staunchly anti-American Mr. Khameneh'i to give, reluctantly though, the green light to the talks is that he was "convinced" by his aides, but most particularly the former president, that the regime’s survival was hinging on normalisation with the "Great Satan".
"Considering that Iran is almost besieged by American forces, that the Bush Administration is determined in abolishing all regimes it considers as evils, supporting international terrorism and harbouring terrorists, Mr. Khameneh'i was convinced to drink his own cup of poison" and accept the principle of dialogue with Washington", the source added, referring Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini’s famous phrase after he accepted the United Nations Security Council’s resolution proclaiming cease-fire to the Iran-Iraq war.
In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush had named Iran as an "evil State" alongside with Iraq and North Korea. In another remark, he warned that he might use small atomic bombs against some "rogue" regimes, including that of Islamic Republic.
"The menaces were taken seriously by Iranian ayatollahs and to calm down Bush’s wrath, they immediately ordered Golboddin Hekmatyar, the anti-American Afghan warlord out of Iran, arrested some 150 members of "Al-Qa’eda", the terrorist organisation suspected to be behind the 11 September operations and the collapsed Taleban regime, assured the UN-installed and backed Afghan interim government of Hamed Karzai of their full support", one observer noted.
"The principle of starting dialogue with America has been accepted and directives for the formation of a special group for that purpose have been issued, remains the appointment of the members", the new pro-reform newspaper "Bonyan" said, quoting an un-named deputy.
Meeting with some MMs (Member of the Majles), Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, addressing the issue of Iran-American relations, stressed on the "necessity and importance" of avoiding exaggeration and extremism", IRNA reported Sunday.
"The authorities have never opposed contacts between Iranians and Americans on individual level or for the purpose of business or sport, cultural, scientific and intellectual exchanges, provided no (political) group or faction try to misuse the issue for their own profits, thus helping the enemy", observed Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered as the number two man in the Islamic Republic and a mentor to the diminutive leader Ali Khameneh'i.
Political analysts said by accepting finally that Washington is the Ka’ba (holly shrine) of the world, the conservatives have reached the conclusion that they ought to be present there, create their own direct lobby in order to influence American policies there with their own people, leaving Khatami and the so-called reformists in the backseat.
The news of the creation of the group was broke by the conservative "Jam Jam" daily that belongs to the "Voice and Visage of the Islamic Republic", or the leader-controlled Radio and Television, on its 13 April edition, quoting an unidentified but "informed source".
According to the paper, President Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami had commissioned Hojattoleslam Hasan Rohani, the powerful Secretary of the Supreme council for National Security (SCNS) and Mr. Mohammad Javad Larijani, an adviser to the leader for international affairs and brother of Mr. Ali Larijani, the General Director of the VVIR.
Both Mr. Rohani and Mr. Larijani are member of the conservatives-controlled Assembly for Discerning the State’s Interests (ADIS, or Expediency Council), officially an advisory body to the leader and a "mediator" between the leader-controlled Council of the Guardians and the reformists-dominated Majles.
Chaired by Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, the ADIS has extraordinary powers, not only duplicating at times the government or the parliament, but also empowered to decide on the regime’s most vital issues, such as relations with the United States or Israel.
"By charging the ADIS to supervise the talks with America, Khameneh'i in fact has killed three birds with one stone: Keeping himself out of the melee, keeping the reformists, who were championing the talks, out and placing the conservatives as the main interlocutors of the Americans", the source added.
Analysts said that in its present form, the group not only responds to American conditions insisting that talks be conducted at official level, but at the same time is a subtle face saving for the Iranian clerics, specially Mr. Khameneh’i who has constantly and vehemently rejected any dialogue with the United States on the illogic base that talking to the Americans is "useless".
Though the SCNS, in a laconic statement reported by IRNA denied the "veracity" of the reports, yet, not only the protagonists have maintained silence over the sensitive issue, but other papers have indirectly confirmed, stating that the Islamic Iran Participation Party, Iran’s largest political pro-reforms organisation that is led by Mr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the President’s younger brother, has deplored that no reformists have been appointed to the Iran-US talks group.
For his part, Mr. Larijani, in the "double speak" language familiar to the Iranian officials, told the pro-conservative but moderate "Entekhab" (Choice) " that he has no knowledge of himself being member of the Iran-US talks, but described as "necessary" the nomination of a special representative for reviewing the vital issue of Tehran-Washington relations.
A former lawmaker and Deputy Foreign Affairs minister, Mr. Larijani conducted secret talks with senior British diplomats in London in May 1997 on behalf of Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori, the then Speaker of the Majles who, as the conservatives candidate, was defeated at the hands of the relatively unknown Mohammad Khatami in that year’s presidential elections.
In Beirut last week, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharrazi had urged the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah to "self restrain", warning the organisation’s leaders not to bring water to the Israeli’s "expansionist, hegemonic, aggressive and criminal policy" mill.
The remarks drew a sharp comment from the evening daily "Keyhan", a mouthpiece of Mr. Khameneh'i, asking the minister to explain on who’s behalf he had made such "strange, illogical, shameful and regretful declaration that are "exactly in line with American and Israeli policies?"
The paper also said that according to the US State Secretary Collin Powell, Russia is putting pressure on Iran and Syria to stop their support for the Palestinian intifada.
Relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States were cut after revolutionary Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979, shortly after the proclamation of the Islamic Republic, and took hostage fifty-five members of the embassy, including diplomats, for 444 days. ENDS IRAN US TALKS GROUP 15402