BAM, Iran, 2 January 2004 — Iranian officials yesterday hailed the temporary lifting of US sanctions on Iran in the wake of the Bam earthquake, calling it the latest in a number of positive signals from Washington to the Islamic republic.
“We must look at it more closely, but they are in the process of sending positive signals for several months now,” former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the powerful Expediency Council arbitration body, said here.
In Tehran, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Washington’s decision to allow US cash and relief aid to flow to the victims of last week’s massive earthquake in this southeastern Iranian city, “although temporary, is positive.”
“Naturally, the permanent and total lifting of the sanctions would introduce a new climate into the relations between the two countries,” he was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
Asked about the possibility of a resumption of talks between Washington and Tehran, which call each other part of the “Axis of Evil” and “the Great Satan” respectively, Rafsanjani said, “I am not sure but there are signals” from the United States.
And a senior Iranian official said Washington’s decision to ease sanctions was a goodwill gesture which Iran would respond to in kind. “In Parliament right now we are evaluating the American government’s positive behavior and I’m sure that goodwill will be answered with goodwill,” said Mohammad Reza Khatami, deputy Parliament speaker and brother of President Mohammad Khatami.
He did not specify what reciprocal measures Iran might take.
On Tuesday, President Khatami had rejected any dialogue without a radical shift in US policy, despite welcoming American aid, including an 80-strong team of experts whose arrival aboard the first US military planes to land in Iran for more than 20 years caused great excitement here. “What is the point of negotiations if there is no trust that will enable us to reach a common position,” Khatami said on a visit to Kerman, capital of the province where Bam is located.
He added: “I don’t think that (the US aid) will change anything (regarding relations between Iran and the United States) without a profound change (in the US attitude).”
But on Wednesday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said: “The Iranian people deserve and need the assistance of the international community to help them recover. The American people want to help.”
The US Treasury issued a general license valid for 90 days enabling US citizens and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to make direct contributions in dollars to Iranian and other organizations for relief work in and around Bam.
The State Department said it was allowing the US government and NGOs to export to Iran sensitive items like transportation equipment, satellite telephones and radio and personal computers.
