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The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement today quoting Iran's state-controlled media as saying that Alireza Mo'ayeri, a key advisor to the mullahs' president Mohammad Khatami, has been appointed as ambassador to France.
According to the statement, Mo'ayeri is one of the longest-serving officials involved in terrorist activities abroad. He was until 1985 the political advisor to Mir Hossein Moussavi, the then Prime Minister. In that post, he actively pursued the regime's espionage and terrorist activities abroad through the Special Bureau of the Prime Minister.
Khatami's dispatch of Mo'ayeri to France fits in the context of expanding the clerical regime's terrorist network in Europe. After the verdict by a Berlin court in the Mykonos trial and the exposure of the role of the mullahs' embassy in Bonn as the springboard for terrorist activities in Europe, Tehran has transformed its embassy in Paris into one of the main centers of organizing and coordinating its terrorist activities.
Mo'ayeri was appointed as ambassador to France in 1985 and worked closely with Vahid Gorji, an Intelligence Ministry officer in France. Gorji was behind a series of bombings in that country in the 1980s.
Mo'ayeri was appointed as presidential advisor for international affairs when Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president in 1989 and attended all meetings of the Supreme National Security Council. In November 1992, mullahs' leader Ali Khamenei appointed Mo'ayeri as the head of the Department for Liberation Movements in his own office. In that post, Mo'ayeri put all fundamentalist and terrorist activities in such countries as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and in Kashmir under the supervision of Khamenei's office and directed these activities.
When in December 1993 France released and handed over to the Iranian regime two assassins of Professor Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate and NCR's representative in Switzerland, instead of turning them to the Swiss judiciary to face justice, Mo'ayeri, accompanied by Amir Hossein Taghavi, the head of the Intelligence Ministry's European operations, went to Paris to receive the two terrorists and took them to Tehran.
The NCR statement added: The Iranian Resistance condemns strongly France's acceptance of a notorious terrorist as Tehran's envoy to that country and considers it as yet another political concession to the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran. The French action is a blatant violation of the decisions reached by the European Union in its April 29", 1997 session in Luxembourg, stipulating that visas must not be issued to those involved in terrorist activities to enter Europe. It will only give freer rein to Tehran's rulers to engage in terrorism.
French FM on Delicate Mission to Iran,
Agence France Presse, Aug 19
France's Socialist foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, will pay a delicate visit to Iran next Saturday and Sunday, navigating a careful course between the different factions that share power in Teheran while avoiding endorsement of a regime that shows scant respect for human rights.
The last visit to Teheran by a French foreign minister was paid by Roland Dumas in May, 1991. Three months later, Iranian agents murdered former prime minister Shapur Baktiar at his suburban Paris home, freezing relations between the two countries.
The emphasis placed by Iranian officials on the "importance" of Vedrine's visit, presented as a "turning point," is nonetheless an embarrassment for Paris.
French officials said there was no intention to endorse the president or to arbitrate between the factions, although Vedrine's visit can only be seen as clear support for Khatami, just as Dumas's trip in 1991 was interpreted as support for president Hashemi Rafsanjani.
All factions of the Iranian opposition have denounced the Vedrine visit as "backing for the religious dictatorship."
Iran Missile Will Be Operational Next Year, Agence France Presse, Aug 19
JERUSALEM—The United States new in advance that Iran was going to test a new missile last month but withheld the intelligence from Israel for fear the Israeli army might try to disrupt the launch, the Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday.
According to US and Israeli experts, the Shihab-3 has a range of 1,300 kilometers (780 miles), capable of reaching Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia with conventional or non-conventional warheads.
The chief of Israeli army intelligence, General Amos Malka, told a parliamentary panel Tuesday that the Shihab-3 would be operational by the end of 1999, according to press reports of his testimony.
Haaretz quoted intelligence officials as saying they expected Iran to carry out a second test of the missile in the coming months.