Back to Brief on Iran
Despite positive rhetoric from its new president, Iran continues to support terrorism and to develop weapons of mass destruction, a senior State Department official said yesterday as top U.S. negotiators left for Jerusalem to try to salvage the stagnant Mideast peace process.
The peace process is stalled in part because of explosions in Israel set off by terrorist groups funded, armed and trained by Iran, the official said.
"What still concerns us is Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah-type organizations involved in violent terrorist activities," the State Department official said on the condition of anonymity.
Despite "Iranian rhetoric" condemning terrorism, and a "charm offensive" aimed at Persian Gulf states that has ended backing for terrorism there, the United States has not seen evidence Iran has stopped backing anti-Israel terrorists.
"We don't see much change at the moment - there is still engagement with Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah," the official said….
Hamas Founder Lauds Mullahs' Stand on Israel,
Agence France Presse, April 28
TEHRAN - Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant group HAMAS, arrived here Tuesday to hold talks with Iranian officials….
Speaking to reporters, the Palestinian leader praised Iran's stand on the Palestinian question, "notably support for the Palestinian struggle against Israel."
He is to hold talks with several Iranian officials and religious dignitaries, including possibly President Mohammad Khatami.
Iran, which calls for Israel's destruction, supports HAMAS in its fight against the Jewish state.
Mullahs Nab Backers of Dissident Cleric After Strike, Reuter, April 28
TEHRAN - Iranian police have arrested shopkeepers and teachers who held a strike backing dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a newspaper said Tuesday.
The daily Jameah said authorities in Montazeri's hometown Najafabad, near the central city of Isfahan, also ordered about 40 shops shut for showing support for the strike this week.
The strike, which shut Najafabad's bazaar, was the third in recent weeks to protest against the authorities for holding the senior dissident cleric under house arrest. He had questioned the authority of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei in November.
Police also arrested several clerics and a woman who headed an Islamic school for girls, in addition to an unspecified number of traders and teachers, the newspaper said.
Unemployed Workers Attack Public Building, Agence France Presse, April 28
TEHRAN - Around 100 angry unemployed workers demanding jobs attacked a social welfare office in southwestern Iran, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
They attacked the unemployment and welfare office in Dezful, Khuzestan province, with rocks on Sunday and broke windows, Hamshahri daily said.
The assailants were frustrated over being excluded from the list of workers hired by the state-owned Karun sugar-beet industrial company in the nearby town of Shushtar, it said….
Hamshahri, citing an "informed" source, also reported of labor unrest in the nearby towns of Shush and Andimeshk, saying "there is a fear that it will catch on to other towns in the region."
Ali-Reza Mahjub, MP and secretary general of state labor union, warned last week that the country's chronic unemployment could worsen as a growing number of young people enter the job market.
"The army of workers will double in number," he said, estimating that 37 million of the country's 60 million population were under the age of 24.
Municipality's Revenues Decline Amid Scandal, Agence France Presse, April 28
TEHRAN - Tehran municipality's revenues have dropped sharply because of the impact of a corruption scandal in the city government on the city's real estate market, a newspaper said Tuesday.
The recent allegations against the municipality had led to "insecurity in the development sector causing a worrying drop in revenues," said the daily Hamshahri, which is run by the municipality.
The central bank said in a report last week that the crisis gripping the construction and property sectors in Tehran is worsening and beginning to spread to other Iranian cities.