FDI's Weekly Newswire

FDI WEEKLY NEWSWIRE NO 23

Oct. 14, 1996

* Everybody loves the IRI

* Sweet-talking Qatar and Oman

* Dipping under the D'amato limit in Turkmenistan

* No confidence vote against Besharati

* Nategh-Nouri maneuvers... and Rafsajani bows out

* Lankarani leaves the hospital

* Terrorist planning session in Somalia

* Another cleric jailed

* Azeribaijan official to Tehran

* Shell thumbs nose in Tehran

* Major Changes in IRIAF F-14's

* Basijis better than China Pop Army

* Nateq-Nouri "takes his fantasies for reality."

* Hanging in Isphahan

Everybody loves the IRI

Deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs Mahmoud Vaezi made the rounds in Moscow last week, meeting on Oct. 8 with Oleg Davidov, Russia's deputy prime minister and minister of foreign economic affairs. Davidov was instrumental in the negotiation of the Iran-Russian "strategic cooperation" pact signed in December 1995.

Kayhan reported that Davidov "strongly condemned" US sanctions against the Islamic Republic, vowing that Russia "will pursue its relations with the Islamic Republic in all possible fields of cooperation." Mr Davidov added that the two countries will soon launch new cooperation ventures in the areas of energy, banking and mine exploitation. [Kayhan 10/9]

Vaezi's meeting was prepared by an Oct. 3 session between the Islamic Republic ambassador in Moscow with Davidov, at which the two sides reportedly agreed to establish the first Irani-Russian joint economic commission, and to set up a new Bank of Iran and Russia. They also agreed to launch a host of industrial projects, some of which have been in the works for years. These included an aircraft production factory in Iran (old news), new steel mills (on-again, off-again), new copper mills (quid the Chinese, who supposedly had that one locked up?), and joint oil and energy exploitation. When it comes to oil and gas in the Caspian shelf, the Islamic Republic and Russia have apparently agreed to disagree on whether the Caspian is a sea or a "lake." [Salam 10/5]

Sweet-talking between Moscow and Tehran is being conducted on multiple levels. Iranian papers widely reported remarks attributed to the deputy speaker of the Russian parliament, Mr Babouin, at a Tehran press conference, that the two countries "presently have the same national interests and can jointly struggle against the foreign powers in the region." [Etelaat 10/5]

No Russian media has reported similar statements about the U.S. presence in the Gulf from Russian leaders in Moscow.

But the next day Kayhan attributed similar comments to yet another Russian visitor - minster of Housing Vasin - following an Oct. 5 meeting with IRI Vice President Hasan Habibi. "The common policies of Iran and Russia in international affairs can help create stability and security in the region," Vasin reportedly said. He added that "the two countries would launch new cooperation in construction technology." [Kayhan 10/6]

In the same issue, Kayhan reported that President Rafsanjani declared vctory against the U.S. sanctions policy following a meeting with the Finnish ambassador (the Finnish ambassador?) in Tehran. "The policies and positions of the European Union against expansionist American policies falls in line with the Islamic Republic's interests. [Finland is not yet a member of the EU, but that's okay]. "Presently the third world countries have understoood that the world is no longer controlled by just a single superpower. [Neither is Finland a member of the third world...] "The European Union as a new superpower," Rafsanjani said, "and is well informed of its international responsibilities."

Perhaps North Korea has become one of the world's new superpowers, seen from Tehran. After all, it almost acquired nuclear weapons, then got the Americans to pay for a brand new nuclear reactor in exchange (Rafsanjani must be wondering how much the Americans will offer for Busheir...). At any rate, after meeting with the new North Korean ambassador to Tehran, Kim Young Mo, President Rafsanjani called on " the independent countries of the world to confront US expansionist policies." He also vowed that Iran and North Korea will "expand their relations." [Kayhan 10/6]

Pass the kimche, please.

Sweet-talking Qatar and Oman

In an effort to defuse its foreign policy difficulties with neighbors on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf, IRI ambassadors are pulling out the stops. A new ambassador to Qatar, Mahmoud Muwahedi, has been meeting with Qatari officials at all levels, including last week those involved in sports and cultural affairs. [The Peninsula-Doha, 10/11 and 10/12]. He was received the morning after his arrival in mid-September by the Foreign Minister, and on the following day by the Emir of Qatar, a clear sign of the close relationship between the two countries, IRI embassy officials in Qatar said.

In Oman, where the stakes are even higher in terms of security, IRI ambassador Savash Zargar Yaghoubi met with the commander of the Omani Navy, General Shahab Ben Taregh, on Oct. 8. The Tehran press accounts of meeting stressed "new fields of cooperation between the Iranian and Oman Navies in Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz," and discussions of the political situation in the region. [Kayhan 10/9]

Dipping under the D'amato limit in Turkmenistan

The construction of a natural gas pipeline linking Iran to Turmenistan began on Oct. 10, according to Iranian press reports, but will fall just under the D'Amato limits for foreign investment in Iran's oil and gas industry.

A memorandum of understanding between the two countries laid out arrangements for building two separate pipeline sections, 60 kilometers and 80 kilometers long respectively - presumably the in-country links needed on both sides of the border.

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is in charge of overall engineering for the project while an unnamed "international group of companies" will handle financing and technology acquisition. [Resalat 10/9]

Wire reports set the total value of the joint gas project at $180 million, with the Iranian side financing 80% of the work. That leaves an investment of $36 million for outside contractors and financial institutions - just beneath the $40 million threshhold of the D'Amato bill that would require U.S. sanctions of the foreign investors.

Hope they got the arithmetic right and nobody runs over cost.

No confidence vote against Besharati

11 MPs from the Islamic Republic parliament filed a non-confidence vote against Interior Minister Ali Mohammad Besharati on Oct. 10, on the pretext that his ministry has been incapable of handling the security of Sistan and Balouchestan province in the south-east of Iran.

Besharati is very close of Ayatollah Nategh Nouri, the speaker of the parliament, and is considered one of the highest-ranking officials in the government. The move against him thus appears to be a veiled attack on Nategh-Nouri as next year's presidential election debate heats up.

As the minister of Interior, Besharati plays a major role in the election process, including the supervision of polls. In the past, he has been accused of ballot-stuffing in favor of pro-regime candidates. [Tehran Radio 10/10]

Nategh-Nouri maneuvers... and Rafsajani bows out

At the Oct 10 session of the Majlis, Parliament speaker Nateq-Nouri responded to the apparent support offered recently by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene'i to presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, a former Prime Minister who is said to be close to Rafsanjani.

"Presently I am not candidate for the coming presidential elections," said Nateq-Nouri. "But if Ayatollah Khamene'i orders me, I will have no other choice but to participate in the election as a candidate."

Nateq-Nouri thus appears to be maneuvering to get Ayatollah Khamene'i to publicly endorse his own candidacy. [Tehran radio, 10/11]

Meanwhile, in a speech to Friday Prayer Imams in Tehran on Oct. 4, President Rafsanjani finally confirmed that he would not be a candidate for the next presidential elections. Rafsanjani said he was ready "to serve the revolution even as a simple governor general of one of the provinces of the country" once his term expired next June. [Tehran Radio 10/4]

Commenting the Rafsanjani move, Jomouri-e Eslami, which is owned by Ayatollah Khamenei, wrote that "the subject of President Rafsanjani's candidacy for the next election is now clear. He will not be a candidate and he can serve the Islamic Republic in other provisions." [Jomhouri-e Eslami 10/8]

Lankarani leaves the hospital

Grand Ayatollah Lankarani, who suffered an apparent brain seizure or stroke only days after delivering his violent fatwa against Saudi Arabia (see Newswire 22), was discharged from a Tehran hospital on Monday, Oct 7. His son, Mohammad Javad Fazel Lankarani, told Resalat that his father had recovered as was returning home from "in good condition." [Resalat 10/8]

Terrorist planning session in Somalia

According to an Al-Ordon, an Arabic-language newspaper published in Amman, Jordan, representatives of Iranian-backed terrorist groups met in Mogadishou, Somalia, during the week of Oct. 1, under the supervision of Islamic Republic intelligence officials. Groups sending representatives to the meeting included the Lebanese Hezbollah, unspecified Afghan terrorist groups, and other Arab terrorist organizations, perhaps from the Gulf region. According to Al-Ordon's account, the participants agreed to step up terrorist attacks against U.S. targets in the Middle East and in Europe. The first target, the paper said, would be "American civilian and military targets in Kuwait."[Al-Ordon, 10/7]

On the day this account was published in Jordan, Kuwaiti male citizens over the age of 21 went to the polls, to elect a new National Assembly - the 8th Parliament since the Kuwaiti Constitution set the rules for participatory democracy in 1962. Unlike the Islamic Republic, which pre-selects candidates for the Majlis elections from among various pro-government factions, in Kuwait anyone can stand for election. And yes, they can even criticize the government and call for constitutional changes, without fear of reprisal.

Another cleric jailed

Yet another follower of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Shirazi has been jailed, according to reports from family members and sympathizers in Lodon.

Hojjat-ol Eslam Sayyed Fadel Fadheli, aged around 35, was "abducted" from his hom in Qom, family members said, in early September, and has not been heard from since. They believe he was taken by agents of the Ministry of Information and Security.

Sheikh Faali, a businessman and supported of Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, has already had a run-in with the authorities, when he was arrested in early 1995 and sentenced to exile in Iranshahr city by the Special Court of the Clergy, along with other Shirazi supporters. As part of his sentence, he was separated from his family and not allowed to visit them. This earlier sentence was eventually rescinded on Oct. 3, 1995.

His 30-year old wife, a mother of four, was arrested by the authorities in June 1996 and accused of having started an argument with the MOIS agents who were surrounding a religious centeraffiliated with Grand Ayatollah Shirazi in Qom. After public pressure she was released, but is still prohibited from leaving the city until she is tried by the Special Court of the Priests. A trial date has not yet been set.

Other members of the Faali family have also been subject to arrest, emprisonment, and torture in recent years, including his father, Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmed Faali, his nephew, Seyed Mohmmed Faali, and four brothers.

The MOIS continues to hold 17 supporters of Grand Ayatollah Shirazi and two of his sons, and there have been persistent reports they have been tortured while in jail. Hojjat-ol Eslam Sheikh Taqi Dhaakeri and Haaj Muhammed Ghafaari, both of whom were arrested on Nov. 11, 1995, were visited by their families in prison in March and were said by family members to bear the traces of torture and severe weight loss. Mr. Ghafaari was seen in a Tehran hospital for internal bleeding caused by torture.

Hojjat-ol Eslam Seyed Murtadhaa Shirazi, the second son of Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, has been hospitalized for two months to recover from injuries caused by torture, family members said. He was arrested in November 1995, and is now believed to be in critical condition. Prison guards told family members he had been beaten over the head with heating cables until he bled, and was doused in petrol and set on fire. He was also beaten on the soles of his feet with electric cable, and deprived of sleep for seventeen consecutive days.

The authorities are said to have offered to release them in exchange for televised confessions to "crimes" they have never committed, including attempts to overthrow the regime and cooperating with foreign powers. The authorities also want them to "confess" that Grand Ayatollah Shirazi is supported by the CIA. [Suppporters of the Iranian Muslim Nation statement, 9/18]

Azeribaijan official to Tehran

Yashar Aliyev, the deputy speaker of the Azerbaijan parliament, met in Tehran on Sunday, Oct. 6 with Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and the following day held separate meetings with President Rafsanjani and Majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri. The Iranian media reported that the two sides set the agenda for the forthcoming joint Iran-Azerbaijan economic cooperation commission.

Relations between the two governments have been chilly since President Geidar Aliev accused Tehran of involvement in a failed coup attempt against his regime in July 1995.

Shell thumbs nose in Tehran

The Tehran representative of the Royal Dutch Shell, Julian Baxon, thumbed his nose at the U.S. sanctions against Iran in comments reported by Salam daily. "All the European countries are against the US sanctions against the Islamic Republic. We think that after the US elections, this problem will be solved, Shell is interested in investment in Iranian oil and gas industries." [Salam 10/5].

Major Changes in IRIAF F-14's

Iran has succeded in manufacturing spare parts and new equipment for the IRIAF F-14 multi-role fighters, a senior Air Force official said, despite a total lack of support from the United States which has resulted in most of the planes being grounded since 1979. According to General Abbas Tavangaran, the deputy commander of Isphahan's Shahid Babai Air base, the Islamic Republic has succeeded in making changes to the aircraft to incorporate new systems Iran has been able to acquire from third countries, "despite the tplans of the original country which built these planes."

"Among our technological advances is changing F-14's air-to-air missiles to the air-to-ground targeting system, " Gen. Tavangaran claimed. [Salam, 9/21]

Basijis better than China Pop Army

The head of Basij Forces has been claiming that the Islamic Republic will soon realize the dream of the late-Ayatollah Khomeini, of "having a 20 million-member army."

Rev Guard Brigadier General Alireza Afshar, the commander of Basij Forces, said that today the Basijis are always mobilized, because "mobilization is the simple strategy for organizing against political, military, economic and cultural threats." He was speaking on the Sept. 21 anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war.

The Basij Forces was modelled on the "popular armies" in countries of North Korea and China, which Afshar has visited repeatedly. Over the years, he has invited North Korean and Chinese military advisers to Iran to help train and organize the Basiji Forces. But now he says that Islamic Republic's popular army has achieved heights his original mentors only dream of attaining.

"The Basij of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) is unique among popular armies in the world, due to its strong structure, comprehensiveness and variety of missions," Afshar told the Tehran Times.

"No other country in the world has anything like it, but Iran is willing to share its experience with those who wish," Afshar offered. [Tehran Times, 9/22]

Nateq-Nouri "takes his fantasies for reality."

Salam daily has always stood out for its outspoken opinions in the tightly-controlled sphere of the official media. But recently even this newspaper, published by radical Hojjat-ole Eslam Mohammad Mousavi-Khoeiniha (the head of the "Imam's Line students" who stormed and occupied US Embasssy in Tehran in 1979) has been forced to limit its criticism to day-to-day matters and to refrain from questioning the structure of the regime or the behavior of key figures.

Even so, some questions from Salam's readers do manage to pass through the censorship net via the "Hallo Salam" column. One such comment left by a reader on Sept. 21 upbraided Majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri, for his accusation that the United States was behind Saddam Hussein's recent move against opposition Kurds in northern Iraq.

"A few days ago, the honorable Parliament Speaker said that Saddam had attacked Kurdistan following a "green light" from America. Now that US has attacked Saddam's military installations, it's obvious that the Speaker has taken his own fantasies for reality." [Salam, 9/21]

Hanging in Isphahan

A young man was executed in Isphahan on charges of homicide.

Hossein Rezaian, 28, was hanged in a public square of Isphahan, after he was found guilty for killing another man last February.

No information regarding his trial or the judicial procedures was given, nor was it known if Hossein was granted legal defense. [Kayhan, 9/21]