Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Though Mikhail Gorbachev initially seemed subdued in welcoming Rafsanjani in the St. George Hall of the Kremlin, the President was soon smiling and bantering with his guest, the highest Iranian official to visit Moscow since the days of the Shah. In two meetings, the two sides signed four agreements providing for, among other things, a new rail link between Soviet Turkmenistan and the northern Iranian city of Mashhad, which would help fulfill a longtime Moscow goal of greater access to the Persian Gulf. There were discussions, but no final accord, on reopening a gas pipeline from Iran to Soviet Transcaucasia...
...Washington's repelling measure has had the intended effect: whereas asylum applications in Texas ran at a rate of 233 a day two months ago, the level has dropped to fewer than ten daily. Other countries, including Britain and Denmark, ship some refugees to "safe third countries." If an Iranian, for example, arrives via Turkey or a Kurd via Egypt, he is returned to the last departure point...
...earning Khomeini's abiding hostility. In October 1978 the Ayatullah went to France and settled in Neauphle-le-Chateau, a Paris suburb, where for the first time he enjoyed the full glare of Western press attention. Shortly after his arrival, the continuing massive street demonstrations and battles between the Iranian soldiers and protesters turned the tide against the regime and led, within three months, to the Shah's exile. In February 1979 Khomeini made his triumphant return to Iran, where ecstatic million-strong crowds greeted...
While he was consolidating his revolution at home, Khomeini was seeking to extend it to other nations. Iraq attacked Iran across the Shatt al-Arab in September 1980 after Khomeini called for an uprising of Iraqi Shi'ites and fomented skirmishes along the border. Iranian forces blunted the Iraqi offensive, and two months after the war began, the conflict was largely stalemated. After years of fighting, Tehran lost all hope of victory when Iraq stopped an Iranian drive for the port city of Basra in early 1987; a year later, Iraq began the offensive that eventually brought Iran...
Khomeini's ability to hold together the squabbling factions that produced Iran's revolution was one of his major achievements. After first setting the direction of the nation through proclamations and statements, Khomeini left it to his followers to forge specific policies. Still, he remained the pivotal figure of Iranian politics, even toward the end, when his various illnesses made it impossible for him to follow events closely. The dismissal of Montazeri, in the opinion of many experts, put increased power in the hands of the pragmatic Rafsanjani, who is also Commander in Chief of the Iranian armed forces...