TEHRAN, 2 June 2005 — Iranian presidential election frontrunner Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said yesterday he was in favor of ending a quarter of a century of estrangement with the United States, but Washington needed to make the first move. “If they make a positive sign, I am one of those who believes that we need to sort out this problem,” Rafsanjani said.
“I am convinced that it is the Americans who need to show their goodwill so that relations can resume,” the top cleric and former president was quoted as telling a gathering of university professors. “They need to deal with us as equals and renounce their animosity.”
Iran and the United States cut off diplomatic relations in 1980, after revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 US personnel hostage for 444 days. But Rafsanjani, seen as a savvy deal-maker who favors closer ties with the West, has been playing up the issue in the run-up to the June 17 presidential poll — an apparent bid to draw support from many Iranians keen to see the US problem resolved.
His comments came the day after he called on the 26-year-old Islamic government to undergo a radical rethink of the way it deals with the international community and how it relates with its own burgeoning youth population. “There are new demands. Nobody should think that we can act by employing the same literature, the same policies or the same attitudes that we had at the beginning of the revolution or at the end of the (Iran-Iraq) war,” Rafsanjani said in a televised campaign broadcast.
His comments were a marked departure from the usual stance from a government totally at odds with the United States and much of the international community — and also in contrast to the perceived opposition of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to any talks of resuming ties with America.
According to informal opinion polls in the Iranian press Rafsanjani currently leads the eight government-approved candidates hoping to succeed incumbent reformist President Mohammad Khatami. While Khatami has promoted detente and urged a “dialogue among civilizations”, he has also failed to break the ice with Washington.
Although Rafsanjani asserted that “the objectives of the revolution are rooted in our culture and beliefs”, he added that Iran needed “new conditions at home” and “a new form of interaction with the world”. “Staying put or moving backward, reactionary or dogmatic ideas are a poison,” said Rafsanjani.
The right-wing candidates in the race are four hardliners: Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Ali Larijani, Mahmud Ahmadi Nejad and Mohsen Rezai — all veterans of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards. These four are all seen as being ideologically closer to Khamenei, although the supreme leader has asserted that he was not backing any particular candidate.
Presidential candidates vied yesterday to win over the youth vote, promising less interference by religious police in their daily lives and better social, cultural and employment opportunities. Young Iranians voted en masse in 1997 and 2001 to elect Khatami.
Meanwhile, hard-line Parliament renewed its pressure on the reformist government yesterday to end a suspension of its nuclear program, saying negotiations with the Europeans were merely wasting time.
A letter to Khatami, signed by 175 deputies in the 290-seat Majlis, called on the government “to apply the law passed by parliament and approved by the Guardians Council as quickly as possible.” They said a promise by Britain, France and Germany to present new proposals to Iran on solving the nuclear standoff in the coming months was a “victory” for the regime, but added that the EU-3 could also “waste more time by making an unacceptable proposition.”
