Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Iranians." So said a visibly saddened President Carter last week at an impromptu press conference at the White House. It was his discouraging answer to a question about whether Tehran had reacted to a formal U.S. response to Iranian conditions for releasing the 52 American hostages. Two days earlier, a U.S. delegation, led by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, had flown to Algiers with a carefully formulated written statement of the American position. Acting as go-betweens, Algerian officials received the document and delivered it to Tehran. At week's end the chaotic regime of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini...
Though its exact contents remained secret, the U.S. message presumably contained a pledge of noninterference in Iranian affairs and agreement to unfreeze $13 billion in U.S.-held Iranian assets. That would satisfy two of the four demands issued on Nov. 2 by Iran's parliament, the Majlis. But as Christopher and his colleagues painstakingly explained to their Algerian hosts, constitutional and legal restraints would make it difficult for the Federal Government to carry out the other two demands: the cancellation of all U.S. claims against Iran and the return of the late Shah's wealth to Tehran. Washington...
...initial reaction of key Iranian officials was not encouraging. Ali Reza Nobari, the American-educated governor of Iran's central bank, described the American reply as "cool to us" and doubted that U.S. law was a real obstacle to satisfying all the demands. Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, leader of the hard-lining Islamic Republican Party, threatened again that if the U.S. response was deemed unsatisfactory, the Majlis would have to decide whether to try the hostages as spies...
...Iranian officials seemed to share President Abolhassan Banisadr's eagerness to settle the hostage crisis and get on with their desperate struggle against Iraq. From embattled Dezful in Khuzistan province, Banisadr said last week that the sooner the Americans were released, the quicker Iran could obtain foreign resources -presumably including U.S. military spare parts. Said he: "During a war, time is a decisive element...
...roof of an abandoned post office at the edge of the Karun River, Iraqi soldiers point to Iranian outposts a few hundred yards away. In the distance, thick plumes of smoke arise from the burning oil refinery at Abadan. An Iraqi private describes how the remaining Iranian defenders have split into three-and four-man sniper squads. Some of the squads have attempted "hit and run" mortar assaults from the south bank of the Karun. An Iraqi general predicts that Abadan could fall within a week, depending on the intransigence of the Iranian holdouts and the willingness of the Iraqis...