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Iran Rules Out Dialogue With US
Agence France Presse, Arab News
TEHRAN, 30 October 2003 — Iran’s government said yesterday that it would not share its intelligence on Al-Qaeda with the United States, and told Washington that it needed to see “practical steps” before it could consider resuming dialogue.
“We don’t have any relations or links with the US or its security services. So there is no reason to cooperate with them by giving them information,” government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told reporters.
The United States has demanded Iran turn over detained senior members of Al-Qaeda, but Iran has said the men — whose names have not been disclosed — could be tried in its own courts.
Ramazanzadeh also responded to comments Tuesday by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who said Washington may hold limited talks with Tehran —- lumped into an “axis of evil” by US President George W. Bush.
“We are expecting practical steps by the US. You can’t threaten from one side and block our assets …and then request discussions,” Ramazanzadeh said.
“We have to see practical steps,” he emphasized. “The discussion here is what the US will do in practice in order to gain our trust.”
First and foremost, Ramazanzadeh said the US “should stop accusing us”.
“They have leveled false accusations against us one too many times. They have to put a stop to it,” he said, even though he asserted that Iran’s “being or not being in an axis of evil has no meaning to us.”
He also repeated a previous demand that the US unfreeze Iranian assets that were blocked after the 1979 revolution. “These are practical actions in order to gain Iranian trust and so we have a justification to initiate” talks, Ramazanzadeh said.
On Tuesday, Armitage told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that George W. Bush’s administration may hold limited talks with Iran, but normal relations — broken off in 1980 — were not on the table.
Armitage said Washington remains concerned about Tehran’s alleged support for terrorist groups, and the administration is “engaged in bilateral and multilateral efforts, from sanctions to direct appeals, to put a stop to Iran’s support for terrorist organizations, which we believe included Al-Qaeda.”
Meanwhile, Tehran’s hard-line public prosecutor hit back at the reformist Parliament yesterday for issuing a report accusing him of grave irregularities in the arrest and killing in custody of Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi.
Saeed Mortazavi branded the report by Parliament’s Article 90 Commission — which investigates public complaints against parliament or the judiciary —- as “full of sheer lies and polluted with accusations”. Quoted by the student news agency ISNA, the judge vowed that a “reply to each point of the report will be given to the head of the Majlis with proof and documentation.”
On Tuesday, female reformist MP Jamileh Kadivar read a report by the Article 90 Commission that concluded the arrest and detention of the photographer was illegal. It also alleged key details related to her death had been covered up.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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