TEHRAN, 18 September 2003 — Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has called for the formation of a “fatwa council” made up of Islamic clerics to decide on major national and social issues, newspapers reported yesterday.
“Conducting a regime cannot be founded on the fatwa or a single person,” Rafsanjani said, using the Islamic term for religious edicts. “If there is council or councils which focus on important questions and issue a fatwa, that would be a basis for the constitution’s Council of Guardians to approve or reject laws passed by Parliament,” he said at a meeting with clerics late Tuesday in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
The Council of Guardians, composed of six ayatollah appointed by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and six jurists named by the judiciary chief, examines parliamentary legislation to ensure it conforms with the constitution and Islamic precepts.
“Any given law could turn the country upside-down ... could decide between peace or war, could isolate us, humiliate us in the eyes of the world, or, on the other hand, honor us,” said Rafsanjani.
He did not specify the criteria for selecting members of his proposed fatwa council, nor give a timing for its possible formation.
The Council of Guardians normally reaches its verdicts on the advice of conservative clerics rather than religious reformers in the Islamic republic with an eye on public opinion.
In another development, Iranian officials gave fresh signals yesterday that they do not intend to comply with a resolution passed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog giving Tehran until the end of next month to come clean on its atomic program.
“At the beginning of the (1979 Islamic) revolution, we stood up to identical pressure and we are used to it. The Islamic republic has no intention of giving in to pressure,” Rafsanjani was quoted as saying in his latest comment on the deadline.
On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave Iran until Oct. 31 to clear up widespread suspicions it is using an atomic energy program as a cover for nuclear weapons development.
The resolution, passed by the IAEA’s board of governors after intensive US lobbying, demands Iran answer all the IAEA’s questions regarding its enrichment activities, provide unrestricted access to IAEA inspectors and provide a detailed list of its nuclear-related imports.
One of the IAEA’s demands is that Iran sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would allow inspectors to make surprise visits to suspect sites. Failure to satisfy the IAEA could see Iran declared in violation of the NPT on Nov. 20, when the board convenes again in Vienna. The issue could be referred to the UN Security Council, leading to the possible imposition of sanctions.
Even some key reformists have rejected the ultimatum. Parliamenetary Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, a close ally of President Mohammad Khatami, said the IAEA resolution was “political”. “The Iranian people will not accept giving in to the logic of force,” he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
And a prominent conservative, justice chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, qualified the resolution as “unjust”. “The US and their allies want to stop Iran from accessing new technology,” he was quoted as saying on state radio. He said the “only solution was to resist”.
Embattled President Khatami, however, yesterday maintained his silence on the crisis when asked for his reaction to the resolution. Iran’s official position on the resolution has been spelled out by the Foreign Ministry, which stated that “the nature of our cooperation with the IAEA is under consideration.”
