Back to Brief on Iran
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon reacted with skepticism Thursday to assurances by Iran's president that his country was not developing nuclear weapons or supporting terrorism.
Pentagon spokesman[Kenneth] Bacon, responding to comments by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in a CNN interview Wednesday, cited the finding of a German court of Iranian participation in terrorist acts there and of western intelligence of state sponsorship of terrorism by Iran.
He said exports of nuclear components to Iran showed it was seeking the capability to make nuclear fuel, a key step toward developing nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon also is concerned by Iranian efforts to acquire a missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) or more.
"This again is we think a sign of their effort to become a major regional power and they have been pursuing this with some persistence over the last year or so.
"We don't see any signs they are stopping their efforts to develop or procure longer range ballistic missiles," he said.
8 Iranian Dissidents Murdered Since Khatami's Inaugural:
U.S., Associated Press, January 9
Iran still sends mixed signals on terrorism, a major reason for American skepticism over a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, administration officials say.
Administration officials say the number of Iranian dissidents murdered abroad actually increased last year after Khatami took office in August. The killings are thought to have been authorized by authorities in Tehran.
Eight such murders occurred during the post-inaugural period, 11 for the whole of 1997, officials said. The total for the previous year was eight.
As the Americans see it, Iran also
still finances and trains groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestine
Islamic Jihad, who oppose Middle East peacemaking with violence.
Khatami's Intelligence Minister Comments on Interview, Agence France Presse, January 10
TEHRAN - Intelligence Minister Dorri
Najafabadi said in the holy city of Qom that Khatami had clearly rejected
any talk of renewing ties with the United States.
"American leaders were hoping the American
president would say something which could be interpreted as a sign of rapprochement
but we in fact saw that the president gave a categorical 'no'," he said.
Special Report
Fearing the spread of protests by dissident clergy and theology students, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the mullahs' former president, went to Qom last week to visit Hossein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's deposed heir-apparent, reports from Iran say.
Khamenei had approved the trip which was undertaken by Rafsanjani under the guise of lecturing for theology students. With the failure of brutal and suppressive measures ordered by Khamenei against the dissident clergy, Rafsanjani thus tried to negotiate with Montazeri to convince him to cooperate and maintain silence.
In a speech some time ago, Montazeri had accused Khamenei of corruption and incompetence, questioning his qualifications as religious leader and vali-e faqih and condemning his intervention in the country's affairs.
Rafsanjani's trip affirms that despite calls for Montazeri's prosecution and the arrest of a large group of dissident clergymen, Khamenei and his faction have been unable to overcome the wave of opposition among the clergy, and unrest continues to escalate in Qom and other cities.
In recent weeks, a number of senior officials of the regime including Khatami and Rafsanjani, have on various occasions brought up the issue of "the unraveling" of the regime and sought support for velayat-e faqih as the "fundamental pillar of the ruling apparatus."
In another development, the mullahs' Majlis was given a week-long recess unexpectedly and without prior notice. Considering the holidays relating to the martyrdom of Imam Ali, the first Shiite Imam, and the Id-al Fitr, the parliament will therefore be virtually closed for one month. The clerics fear that their internal conflicts reach an explosive state and get out of control.
At the same time, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, head of a student group affiliated with the regime, wrote a letter to Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori, speaker of the mullahs' parliament, repeating the demand for setting a limited tenure for velayat-e faqih and restricting Khamenei's powers.