TEHRAN, 11 April 2004 — Iranian President Mohammad Khatami yesterday distanced Iran from the latest violent developments in Iraq under the leadership of radical Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, saying there was no connection between Iran and radical Shiites. IRNA news agency quoted Khatami as saying that the latest violence and kidnapping in Iraq harms the general image of Islam and Muslims.
The president stressed that Iran supports the moderate policies of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), headed by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, and Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
Both Sistani and Al-Hakim are known to be openly supported by Tehran but at the same time regarded as political rivals of Sadr. Iran, said Khatami, was one of the first countries to acknowledge the Governing Council in Baghdad.
But he added that violence and tension would continue and escalate unless the US ends its occupation and allows the Iraqi people to determine their political fate. The president had earlier this week condemned the attacks by US- led coalition forces on Shiites in southern Iraq, describing them as contrary to their initial claims of bringing freedom and democracy to the country.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi discussed Iran’s nuclear case with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, seeking their support ahead of a June meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors, Iranian dailies reported yesterday.
“Iranian public opinion expects that Iran’s peaceful nuclear case be settled by June and the IAEA and the European Union fulfill their commitments towards Iran,” Kharrazi said in a phone conversation with his German counterpart Joschka Fischer.
In his talk to his French counterpart Michel Barnier, Kharrazi said the visit by IAEA Director General Mohamed El-Baradei to Tehran earlier this week “provided the appropriate opportunity to draw a timetable for normalizing Iran’s nuclear case before the next meeting of the IAEA board of governors.”
Kharrazi told British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: “A timetable has been prepared to discuss and settle the nuclear issue between Tehran and the IAEA and the two sides have agreed on it.”
Last October, Iran gave the IAEA what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities.
It was later found to have made a number of omissions, including its acquisition of designs for sophisticated P-2 centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium, way above the normal level of enrichment required for atomic reactors.
In another development, Kharrazi voiced concern over the kidnapping of an Iranian cleric in Guyana and called on officials there to work quickly to secure his release, state media said.
“We are worried about the kidnapping of an Iranian religious scholar and researcher in Guyana,” the state IRNA news agency reported Kharrazi as telling his Guyanese counterpart Clement Rohee in a telephone conversation. “We want the necessary action to be taken to release him as soon as possible and for the abductors to be prosecuted,” the minister added.
Muhammad Hassan Abrahemi, 35, was abducted outside the International Islamic College of Advanced Studies on April 2 as gunmen fired shots at his car and the building.
On Wednesday, Sheikh Salim Ibn Abdul Kadir, interim head of the college said Iran would send a fact-finding mission to Guyana next week to investigate the kidnapping, but this could not be confirmed with the Iranian foreign ministry.
