Mullahs' Regime Protests As Rest of World Pays Last Respects to King Hussein, Agence France Presse, February 8

TEHRAN - Tehran issued a formal protest to Amman and the Iranian press blasted the Jordanian royal family as leaders of the rest of the world gathered to pay their last respects to King Hussein on Monday.

In stark contrast to the wave of sympathy elsewhere in the world, Tehran newspapers blasted both king Hussein and his son and heir King Abdallah amid continuing hostility here to the Hashemite kingdom's close ties with the West.

The foreign ministry summoned the Jordanian ambassador Sunday evening after the London-based paper Al-Hayat quoted the king as saying that Tehran "remains a threat to the security of certain Gulf countries."

[Last Saturday, The Washington Post reported that: When asked about threats from elsewhere in the region, he [King Abdullah] said that "Iran still causes a problem,"…

[He said that… Khatemi, has not been able to wrest control of the government from hard-liners and that until that happens, "You can't conceive Iran to have changed that much."

[And The New York Times reported that: Yet Iran poses a more serious destabilizing threat to the region, he [King Abdullah] said, warning that the… forces represented by… Khatami remain very much a minority.]

Tehran papers, both left-wing and conservative, slammed the Hashemite royal family and their Western ties.

Abrar, close to conservatives here, called Abdallah the "British king of Jordan" in reference to his British mother, and accused him of wishing to "carry out a colonial policy of creating divisions between Iran and the Arabs."

Newspapers highlighted the king's friendly relations with the Islamic Republic's enemies Israel and the United States.

"All the indications are that Abdallah is the follower of his father's policies and will promote his father's ties with the United States and Israel," said the English-language Iran News.

Salam, close to Khatami, recalled Hussein's "record of treachery to the Palestinian cause" and his support for Iraq during its eight-year war against Iran.

The paper reminded readers that Khomeini had called King Hussein a "repulsive person."

Salam concluded with a veiled call on Jordanians to rise in revolt, saying it was waiting for the day when "the people of Jordan, like the Moslem people of Iran, will be master of its own destiny, and will not allow Zionism and dictatorship to violate its dignity."
 
 

Tehran's Behavior Regarding Terrorism And Peace Process Has Not Changed, Reuters, February 8

WASHINGTON - The United States is unlikely to approve the sale of $500 million in farm goods to Iran any time soon because Tehran has failed to make sufficient changes in its policies regarding terrorism and the Mideast peace process, U.S. officials said on Monday.

"I don't see a decision any time in the near future," a senior official told Reuters.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration view is that "there are elements of Iran's behavior that trouble us. We don't see much sign of change in those elements."

In fact, he added, "in one area where we hoped to see change -- support for the (Mideast) peace process -- we've seen a slip backwards," he added.

"I think we're looking to see if there are going to be changes in Iran's behavior that will warrant changing long-standing U.S. sanctions policy...We don't see at this stage the changes in behavior that would make us comfortable advocating a change," he said.

Also inspiring hesitance over easing sanctions is the assessment of Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, who told a Senate committee last week Washington has not yet seen "any significant reduction in Iran's support for terrorism."

Iran also is "more likely to face serious unrest in 1999 than at any time since the revolution 20 years ago," Tenet said.

Some U.S. analysts say Khatemi and his supporters are running out of time to turn around the country's economy.
 
 

Whitewashing Attack on US Group, Reuters, February 8

TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Monday that a bus carrying U.S. businessmen was attacked in Iran last year because the visitors had misrepresented themselves as ordinary tourists.

"The cause of the problem which happened with a group of American tourists on their trip to Tehran was that this group had come as tourists but had activities other than tourism," Kharrazi told a news conference.

Kharrazi said Americans could visit Iran for business or tourism but called for honesty in visits by U.S. visitors.

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