TEHRAN - Iran said on Thursday the United States should drop its terrorism charges against Tehran to prove it wanted to end its hostility towards the Islamic republic, the Iranian news agency IRNA said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi said the United States "should show in practice the change in its behavior and political will towards the Islamic Republic if it really does not intend to continue its hostility towards Iran," IRNA said.

It said Mohammadi was reacting to a statement by U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin on the possibility of Iran-U.S. talks.

Rubin said on Thursday U.S. terms for starting a political dialogue with Tehran remained unchanged.

He said Iran must be willing to discuss areas of concern to the United States, "namely its opposition to the Middle East peace process, its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its support for international terrorism."

Mohammadi said: "We are keeping a close eye on the U.S. behavior towards Iran," IRNA reported….

Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has supreme power over all state affairs including foreign policy, has rejected the possibility of improved relations with the United States, which Iran sees as its arch-foe.

Clerics' Agents Kill Iranian Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan…, Reuter, August 21 

DUBAI - Iran's main Kurdish opposition group said on Wednesday Iranian agents killed three of its members in northern Iraq.

The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in a statement faxed to Reuters from its Paris office, said "terrorists of the Islamic republic" on Tuesday attacked a van carrying a number of its members, killing three men and wounding nine.

The statement named the three as Saeid Moradi, Esmaeil Namaki, and Ali Zakaleh. It said the attack occurred outside the Kurdish-held town of Dukan, 40 km (25 miles) from the Iranian border.

… The KDPI said last week two of its members and a local man were killed and four other Iraqi Kurds were injured in an armed attack in the Kurdish-held city of Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq. It blamed Iranian agents….

Persecution of Minorities, Women Continues, Radio Israel 

… Religious Minorities, August 21 - According to Arabic newspapers published in London, the Iranian government, in recent months has longed a new wave of group arrests in [southeastern] provinces of Sistan and Balouchestan.

The reports say that an unconfirmed number of Sunni leaders have been arrested and their religious centers shut down.

Balouchi organizations in London have confirmed that the recent actions are part of the general policy of the Iranian government for persecution of Sunni Iranians throughout the country.

The reports indicate that a few months ago, the government's Revolutionary Guards ransacked a Sunni religious school in [northeastern city of] Mashad, have drafted Sunni religious students and arrested Molavi Mohayeddin, a Sunni cleric.

The Iranian Balouchi leaders in London said that the government is trying to drive Balouchies out of border cities and replace them with people from other parts of Iran. This is particularly visible in Zahedan, Chahbahar, and Iranshahr.

… Women, August 18 - The [state-controlled] daily Etela'at called for a tougher policy regarding "improperly-veiled" women and girls and other social behaviors of today's Iran.

As part of a series of articles that began three weeks ago, tonight's section reflected the views of a Basiji [mullahs' paramilitary anti-vice forces] woman.

She described today's Tehran as a city full of lewd makeup-wearing-women and prostitutes and indiscrete young men who freely stop in front of girls.

Etela'at wrote that why women and girls reveal their beauties in view of capricious wanderers in the streets?

The daily called for turning over the cultural and training centers, as well as radio and television, to those whom it called "with religious values and in line with [Iran-Iraq] warfront heroes' aspirations and martyrs' objectives."

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