THE US CONTINUE CONSULTATIONS WITH IRANIAN DISSIDENT GROUPS
By Sharon Behn and Khadija Ismayilova
WASHINGTON 5 June (The Washington Times-IPS) American Administration officials, continuing their meetings with Iranian dissidents, have met an Iranian opposition figure who is trying to unify internal resistance to Iran's ruling clerics and spur a regime change in his country.
Defence officials acknowledged yesterday they have spoken to Mahmood Ali Chehregani, who heads the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakeness Movement (SANAM) operating inside Iran, but emphasised their meetings were not aimed at supporting or encouraging a change in Iran's government.
"The role of the U.S. is to communicate to the Iranian people our firm support for their democratic aspirations and human rights, and to let them know their voice is heard", the officials said in a statement.
"Mister Chehregani is one of many Iranian individuals that the U.S. government speaks with on occasion, but not for the purposes of setting up, supporting or encouraging internal opposition to Tehran", they stated.
Last week, representatives from the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan met with State Department officials in Washington.
The central Iranian Mollahrchy does not recognise the right of Iranian ethnic minorities such as the Kurds, the Azeri, the Baloochi or the Arabs to teach their dialects at schools and to preserve their culture and civilisations, even though that they are not segregated in the social and administrative life of the nation.
SANAM, which also has offices in Azerbaijan and Turkey, is pushing to supplant the current Iranian cleric-run system with a federal government granting the large ethnic Azeri minority living in Iran a wide degree of autonomy.
"We want to change this regime in Iran and replace it with a democratic, secular and federal government", said Mr. Chehregani, a former linguistics professor at the University of Tehran who was arrested in 1995 on charges of speaking against the Iranian government and advocating separatism.
Based in Washington since July 2002, Mr. Chehregani said in an interview that his group was working with other Iranian ethnic minority groups — such as the Iranian Kurds, Baloochis, Turkmen and Arabs — to form a common political front that could challenge Tehran.
Mr. Chehregani said he had more than 50 meetings with senators and congressman, State Department officials, the White House to further his cause.
"We already feel their political support, and they are analysing which financial and physical support they will give to the Iranian opposition. They are analysing it now and in the near future we will know what kind of support we will have," he said.
"I have no negative views of the result", he added.
Spearheaded by Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Washington, which cut off diplomatic relations with Tehran in 1979, recently has increased its criticism of Iran, accusing Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, supporting terrorism and interfering with Iraq's powerful Shi'ite community to undermine U.S. efforts to rebuild the nation.
Patrick Lang, former head of Middle East and North African intelligence for the Defence Intelligence Agency said there was a "good deal of interest in the U.S. government" in putting pressure on the Iranian government and a group like Mr. Chehregani's "would be appealing".
"I think the judgment that Iran is rather unstable is probably correct", Mr. Lang said in a telephone interview, but warned, "if you start poking it and encouraging ethnic dissidents you may encourage destabilising the system. It could come apart spectacularly". ENDS US IRAN OPPOSITION 5603