Word: iranian
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From Tehran, Velayati didn't make any predictions, but he expressed support yesterday for the efforts of Perez de Cuellar, who ended three days of talks on the hostages with Iranian leaders on Friday...
While the contours of the deal seemed clear, the mechanics posed nettlesome questions. Among the most vexing was a condition contained in the letter former British hostage John McCarthy brought to Perez de Cuellar from Islamic Jihad, a fundamentalist Shi'ite faction, operating under the banner of the pro-Iranian Hizballah, that holds several Westerners. It called for "the release of our freedom fighters from prisons in occupied Palestine and Europe." To whom that referred was anybody's guess -- and for whom Islamic Jihad presumed to speak was no more apparent. Was this a bargaining point or an implacable demand...
...Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, meanwhile, had his own reasons for promoting the release of Western hostages. The pragmatic Rafsanjani regards the hostages as relics of an era no longer relevant to his country's problems. Iran, which wields much more influence than Hizballah, desperately needs Western credits, trade and technology to rebuild after its devastating eight-year war with Iraq, which ended in 1988. Rafsanjani, who knows improved relations with the West hinge on the happy resolution of the hostage drama, undoubtedly ordered or at least pressed for the release of McCarthy and Tracy. He may also have...
Rafsanjani is also feeling pressure from Syria, which has a huge stake in the pending peace conference. Iran opposed Syria's acceptance of Secretary of State James Baker's peace proposals. But that displeasure did not prevent a visit last week to Damascus by Iranian Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri, who almost certainly had a hand in McCarthy's release. How, then, to explain Leyraud's subsequent abduction? "Rafsanjani may be in the driver's seat," says Sir John Moberly, a former British ambassador to both Iraq and Jordan, "but there are quite a few backseat drivers...
Some of them wrested the wheel from Rafsanjani last week. In recent months Rafsanjani has pursued better relations with Paris, seeing France as his gateway to the West. The U.S. is still perceived by many Iranians as the Great Satan, and bitter feelings linger from the feud with Britain over the safety of novelist Salman Rushdie, who was condemned to death in 1989 by the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini for his book The Satanic Verses. But France has been in a position to deal openly with Tehran since April 1990, when its last hostage was freed. Last month Paris agreed...