Word: algerias
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Americans and Iranians can agree on one thing at least: without the skillful performance of Algeria's middlemen, the financial settlement that led to the hostages' release would not have been possible. On his last day in office, President Jimmy Carter conveyed to Algerian President Bendjedid Chadli "the immense debt of gratitude" felt by the U.S. Wrote Carter: "We would certainly not have concluded this accord, if we had not had the assistance of your government." State Department officials spoke admiringly of the "tireless work"-and the "imagination and understanding" displayed throughout the ten weeks of ceaseless negotiations...
Exhausted but triumphant, the three men were the first to deplane from one of the Air Algerie Boeing 727s that bore the hostages from Tehran to Algiers. There they were greeted with grateful bear hugs by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria Ulric Haynes Jr., the Americans with whom they had worked so closely in the frantic last days of bargaining...
...Algeria's diplomatic triumph sent a surge of national pride throughout that country. Taxi drivers honked their horns in tribute to the occasion. Recognizing a foreign journalist on a street in Algiers, one passer-by stopped to say, "It is a great moment for our country." Indeed, Algeria's regime had managed simultaneously to win the gratitude of the U.S. without losing its credibility as a champion of revolutions and a sympathizer with fanatically anti-American Iran...
...early as October 1979, the Algerians were instrumental in setting up an inconclusive meeting between National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Iran's then Premier Mehdi Bazargan. After the hostages were seized by the militant Iranians, the Tehran government asked Algeria to represent its interests in Washington. Thus a certain logic was involved when Iran, at the urging of Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, last November asked Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Ben Yahia to help arrange a hostage deal...
...many respects, Algeria was well equipped to serve as America's intermediary with Iran. Algeria is an Islamic state with a revolutionary tradition; its three envoys all played key roles in their country's war for independence from France, which ended in 1962. Since then, Algeria has aided numerous Third World liberation causes. "The Algerians have an almost knee-jerk reaction in favor of anything that calls itself revolutionary," says a Western diplomat in Algiers. "There are some 75 revolutionary or liberation movements with offices here...