Iran's Exiled Opposition Calls Boycott of Presidential Polls, Agence France Presse, April 21

Iran's main opposition group called Monday for a boycott of next month's presidential elections in Iran, calling it an "illegitimate masquerade."

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said that "this vote, like all the other masquerades of this theocracy, is completely illegitimate," according to a statement received by AFP in Nicosia.

Massoud Rajavi, head of the Paris-based NCRI and chief of the armed opposition group People's Mujahedeen, called the May 23 polls a "political funeral and the inevitable sweeping aside" of outgoing president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

"This event is the most import schism that will affect the regime in its terminal stage," he said.

Italy On Alert Against Terrorism, Associated Press, April 18

ROME - Italy's military intelligence agency has warned that the country's international airports and Pope John Paul II could be the targets of Islamic terrorists, Italian media reported today.

The warning was issued late Thursday at a meeting of Italy's intelligence and security agencies.

It comes as relations between Western Europe and Iran were souring following a German court ruling blaming Iran's top leaders for the 1992 murders of Kurdish dissidents in Berlin…

Italian media said the country's military intelligence agency, Sismi, believes Iranian terrorists may be moving their base of operations from Germany to Italy. They said the pope could be a potential target.

[In a related report by ANSA, Mitra Baqeri, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Italy, in commentary said: "The danger posed by the terrorist attacks alerted by Sismi is very serious."]

U.S. Presses Allies on Iran Sanctions, United Press International, April 21 

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration has dispatched a senior envoy to Europe in an effort to persuade the Western allies to adopt the American policy of isolating Iran through economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Peter Tarnoff, who departed his post as undersecretary of state last week, arrived Monday in The Hague for consultations with the Dutch government and is expected to travel on to Bonn, Paris and London.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her advisers say the trip in no way signals willingness by the administration to consider any form of rapprochement with Iran.

Rather, she says Tarnoff will elicit Europe's help in isolating Iran following the finding of a German court this month that "the highest levels" of the Tehran government ordered the killing of four Kurdish opposition members in a Berlin restaurant five years ago….

Despite International Efforts, Germany's Kinkel Makes another Overture towards Mullahs, Associated Press, April 21 

The United States began a fresh campaign Monday to encourage European allies to adopt sanctions against Iran as a means of changing Iran's behavior….

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the Tarnoff delegation is exploring with the allies practical steps that the international community can take to change Iran's "objectionable behavior."

He cited in particular Iran's "support for terrorism, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and its opposition to the Middle East peace process.

"The United States believes very strongly that the Iranian government support for terrorism damages not only American national interests, but the national interests of all of the European countries."

He said the interests of Middle East countries are affected as well.

Burns added that if the Europeans decided to join the United States in cutting off financial and trade ties with Iran, "that would be the ideal scenario."…

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in an interview Sunday the European Union will have to think about a new arrangement in relations with Iran, but not immediately.

At the same time, he suggested Europe's ability to influence Iranian behavior would be lost if ties with Tehran were broken….

[On Monday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in a statement deplored remarks by the German Foreign Minister on the need to maintain dialogue and ties with Iran's terrorist rulers.

"How can Germany's Foreign Minister speak of dialogue with a regime whose leader, president, and foreign and intelligence ministers were singled out by a German court as being responsible for the murder of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin?," the statement asked.]

Back to Brief on Iran