Word: akbar
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Nonetheless, a subdued hope of movement surrounded the news last week that the U.S. had consented to repay $567 million in frozen Iranian assets. The agreement was reached after two days of negotiations between State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer and a senior adviser to Iran's President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The two met in the Hague, site of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal that was set up as part of the 1981 deal that freed the 62 American embassy hostages in Tehran. Both sides agreed that Iran will be paid most of the balance remaining...
...cards and thank-you notes to friends, political allies and even perfect strangers. This ever growing list of correspondents has served Bush well in difficult times, and may soon do so again. Last week the President added a new name to his address book: that of Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani...
...series of interviews and statements aimed at newly elected President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatist considered eager to end the isolation of the Khomeini era and repair his shattered economy, Bush held out the possibility of warmer relations in exchange for help in freeing the U.S. hostages. While Bush did not disavow the Reagan-era prohibition against direct bargaining with terrorists, he shifted ground enough to make some kind of negotiation possible. His private communiques, sent via the Swiss embassy in Tehran and other intermediaries, elicited encouraging replies from Rafsanjani...
...hostages are also pawns in the games played by powerful Middle East states. In Iran, they are part of a domestic power struggle between Rafsanjani and his hard-line Interior Minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, who served as paymaster to Hizballah in the early 1980s. Experts feel that Mohtashami's - ability to sustain the hostage holding will be a litmus test of his power under the newly elected President. Syria, which maintains about 25,000 troops in Lebanon, could improve its relations with the West by rescuing the hostages, but it wields little influence over the Shi'ites who hold them...
...Rafsanjani's earlier words of conciliation toward a nation the Ayatullah Khomeini labeled the Great Satan indicate a major change since Khomeini's death in June. Rafsanjani appears to have moved with surprising quickness to consolidate his leadership against challenges from more radical mullahs, particularly Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the principal link between Tehran and Hizballah in Lebanon. There are signs that the new President is also gaining influence over Hizballah, as he must if he is to deliver on any promises to help in the hostage situation. When Hizballah leaders went to Tehran several weeks ago to express...