PROMINENT SUPPORTER OF TIES WITH US ARRESTED

TEHRAN, 4 Nov. (IPS)

Summing up his Spanish official visit, “El Mundo”, a pro-government newspaper referred to the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami as “a man with two faces”.

It should have added also that Mr. Khatami, like most Iranian clerics, is also a man of two speeches, sometimes in total contradiction, as seen from the one he pronounced in Tehran on Monday on the occasion of what the official news aggency IRNA said was the Air Force Day, but the authorities had preferred to organise rallies in the souvenir of the 4 November 1979 storming of the US embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students, who took 55 American diplomats and staff as hostages for 444 days.

In his speech, Mr. Khatami called on the American nation to make their government change its “incorrect policy which has hurt the feelings of a large number of people throughout the world”.

As he was speaking, Mr. Sa’id Mortazavi, the Judge dubbed as “The Butcher of the Press” ordered Mr. Abbas Abdi, one of the leaders of the students who had attacked the American embassy, now a staunch supporter of normalisation with Washington, to be jailed, accused of having received money from the American polling firm Gallup to organise the famous survey that showed 1.2 per cent of Iranians consider Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’I as a popular leader and that more than 73 per cent favours talking with the United States.

Ordered by an angry leader, the conservatives reacted immediately by closing the polling firm, which is sponsored by the Islamic Guidance Ministry and jailed its Director, mr. Behroz Gernpayeh.

Conservatives said the findings were “fabricated” and on Monday, Mr. Khameneh’i reiterated that charge, saying “fabricated poll give the Iranians false hopes" to those who want to repair U.S.-Iran ties, a clear reference to Mr. Abdi and a great number of Iranian intellectuals, scholars, businessmen and opinion-makers that think otherwise.

Mr. Khatami stressed that the US politicians should be compelled to change their policies towards other countries and at rhe same time, defended the attack of the American embassy and the hostage taking, saying that on that day, the Iranian nation “showed its wrath towards Washington's incorrect and interventionist policies by its youth”, but did not want to “hurt the feelings of the American nation”.

However, as usual, he did not spelled out what the Islamic Republic had done to correct ist behaviour towards the American people, if not the American governments, as, on orders from ruling hard liners, organised mobs continue to burn American flags, shout “death to America” every Friday and continue a hostile policy.

Nor did Mr. Khatami said why the Islamic Republic refused to reciprocate when the Clinton Administration admitted his past mistakes with Iran and offered an olive branch?

Abdi recently led a chorus calling on moderate President Mohammad Khatami to resign if, as expected, conservatives block two reform bills put forward to strengthen his authority in the one hand and curtailing the powers of the leader-controlled Council of Guardians on the other.

When asked by IPS what he would do if the guardians reject his bills, Mr. Khatami dashed the question, said he hoped that things would be sorted out in a “logical and reasonable manner”. ABDI ARRESTED 41102