POLITICS-IRAN: Teheran’s New Image Involves Only Slight Change

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 22 1998 (IPS) - Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has impressed Western leaders and the media on his first U.N. visit by promoting dialogue between Islamic and Western states but he has given little indication of how to improve political ties.

During a briefing with selected Western media representatives Tuesday Khatami indicated the end to one major bone of contention with the West – the 1989 fatwa (or edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that threatened the life of British author Salman Rushdie.

“We should consider the Salman Rushdie issue as completely finished,” Khatami told reporters. He added that Iran will take “no action” to fulfill Khomeini’s ruling, which called on Muslims to kill Rushdie because of alleged blasphemy contained in his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.

Western observers, however, noted that the president’s words represented little change from Teheran’s standard line in recent years that it would not enforce the death threat, but could not rescind it either. Iranian leaders have maintained that since Khomeini, who issued the fatwa, died later in 1989, the edict cannot be lifted.

“They have not lifted the fatwa,” one U.N. official told IPS Tuesday. Instead, he added, in a reflection of previous policy, “Iran has pledged not to enforce the fatwa.”

Even so, Khatami’s mild words on Rushdie were another sign of a thaw in Teheran’s foreign policy – including its relations with the United States. White House spokesman Mike McCurry responded in kind, saying that if the Rushdie edict was indeed rescinded, “that would be a welcome development”.

British and Iranian officials are scheduled to discuss mutual concerns, including the Rushdie affair, when the two governments’ foreign ministers meet here Thursday.

On Monday, Khatami delivered his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly and attracted attention for his favourable comments about democracy, liberalism and dialogue between civilisations. “From now onwards, we want to push forward a dialogue, and we hope that we have entered the period of dialogue,” he told the press Tuesday.

Although the Iranian leader refrained from the normal practise of using General Assembly speeches to criticise the United States – long called “the Great Satan” by some of the nation’s more conservative Islamist leaders – he also warned that relations between Teheran and Washington have a long way to go.

On the one hand, Khatami viewed U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Monday speech at the Assembly, in which he argued that “the American people respect and honour Islam”, positively. “We welcome any respectful mention of our nations, our culture and our civilisation,” he said.

However, he added, “there are still sanctions against us and the use of certain acts or certain laws against our country…the assets of the good people of Iran…are still frozen in this country.” In addition, Khatami called on Washington to “make some efforts to account for the rights of the oppressed people of Palestine” rather than what he called “unilateral support for Israel and the Zionist entity”.

More significantly, Iranian officials avoided bellicose talk about neighbouring Afghanistan, which Teheran has threatened with war in recent weeks following the murders of at least eight Iranian diplomats by the country’s ruling Taliban militias. “Iran is ready to defend its security and territorial integrity, but we are making all efforts so that, God willing, there will not be a war,” Khatami promised.

Iran was pleased by a meeting of eight nations Monday on Afghanistan which resulted in a joint statement calling for a “broad-based, multi-ethnic, representative government” and for an immediate cease-fire among warring factions there. The nations – including Iran, Pakistan, the United States, Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan – also called for an investigation into charges of mass killings and the killing of the Iranian diplomats.

“I think it was a step forward,” Iranian diplomat Javed Zarif said after the meeting. “The international community will no longer accept the killing of innocent people.”

U.S. diplomats, however, are still worried about the build-up of more than 200,000 Iranian troops near the Afghan border. “Iran has the capacity to attack,” U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said Monday night. “Whether they intend to do so is another question.” Rubin added that Washington was “encouraged” by the recent statements from Iranian leaders favouring negotiations over military solutions to the crisis.

The Afghan crisis is one of the instances where U.S. and Iranian interests are beginning to converge, almost two decades after the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi paved the way for Khomeini’s rise. Although the U.S. government secretly armed Iran in the 1980s and used the proceeds to fund the rightist ‘contra’ rebellion in Nicaragua, Washington and Teheran have continued a heated war of words ever since.

The rhetoric was so harsh that, despite the landslide victory of Khatami’s moderates in last year’s elections, Iran has been wary of restoring relations with Washington. Khatami and Clinton avoided meeting during their U.N. appearances Monday, and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi cancelled an appearance at the Afghanistan talks with his U.S. counterpart, Madeleine Albright, at the last minute.

“Kharrazi was occupied with the president,” Zarif said after the foreign minister didn’t show up. Rubin downplayed the importance of Kharrazi’s absence from the meeting, arguing that in any case, “this was not a US-Iranian meeting.”