TEHRAN, 17 April 2005 — Fighting has flared between ethnic Arabs and Iranian security forces in a province bordering Iraq, media reports said yesterday, with some saying three people had been killed. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said clashes erupted on Friday in the Arab-majority oil-rich province of Khuzestan over reported plans to change the ethnic makeup of the area.

Qatar-based satellite television Al-Jazeera said three Arabs were killed, many more injured and as many as 250 arrested after banks and police stations were set ablaze. But local police quoted by student news agency ISNA would only confirm that one person had been shot, and not by police, without providing further details or specifying if the individual had been killed.

Police said that 137 people behind the rioting were arrested while another eight were injured. The unrest, which broke out in three areas of the province’s main city Ahvaz, resulted in damage to public buildings and banks. IRNA reported three injured and, quoting an official at the governorate’s office, said the area was calm and the police now had the situation under control.

IRNA said a forged letter calling for modifications to the area’s ethnic composition had started the fighting, which it said was limited to Ahvaz. A local official said the letter was attributed to former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi and dated from when he ran President Mohammad Khatami’s office. But Abtahi denied on his website that he was behind the letter, which reportedly said that “Arabs must emigrate, Arab names of towns and villages must become Persian (in Khuzestan).”

“Good friends have told me that people are trying to provoke ethnic violence in the province,” Abtahi said on the website, adding that neither he nor anyone else had the power to change the ethnic composition of an area.

Meanwhile, Iran said it had not seen enough incentives from the European Union to pave the way for a deal over its controversial nuclear activities, ahead of a new round of talks next week. Senior negotiator Cyrus Nasseri warned that Tehran would pull out of the talks with the so-called EU3 without tangible progress, but said nevertheless that the negotiations were on the right track.

He told IRNA that the European offers in the negotiations, aimed at allaying international concerns Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, were not enough. Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure “objective guarantees” that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits Iran calls “firm guarantees.”

“We don’t have much time for reaching a solution, time is limited and we will halt (negotiations) as soon as we feel we are not making tangible progress,” Nasseri said ahead of a new round of discussions on April 19. However “the negotiations are on the right track ... leading to a wise, logical and balanced solution satisfactory to both sides.”

In another development, Iranian political heavyweight and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani says he is now “more definite” to run for president on June 17, Iranian newspapers reported yesterday. Rafsanjani, 70, said he had been waiting for a more suitable candidate to come forward but was now increasingly pessimistic that one would turn up.

“My candidacy has become more definite,” he was quoted as saying at a religious meeting in north Tehran by the official Iran newspaper. “My presence would maximize voter turnout,” he was quoted as saying in the Sharq reformist daily.

Khatami has to step down this summer after two four-year terms as president of OPEC’s second-biggest crude producer. Rafsanjani is seen as a pragmatic conservative whose 1989-1997 presidency was marked by modest cultural relaxations and pushes for economic restructuring. He heads the Expediency Council, Iran’s top legislative arbitration council. Last year the body overhauled a key plank of the constitution to allow large-scale privatizations.