Word: tehran
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Tehran, Iran's parliament voted to cut the Islamic Republic's relations with Britain if Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government did not officially denounce Rushdie's novel. Britain responded with a carrot and a stick. Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe told the BBC World Service that Britain understood why Muslims criticized the book and said it was "offensive" for comparing Britain to Nazi Germany. But he emphasized that nothing justified Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's order to kill Rushdie...
...visit to Tehran, meanwhile, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sought to capitalize on the affair, saying "conditions are ripe" for improved Soviet-Iranian ties...
...Khomeini repeated his threat again and again, Western governments at last began to take action. Led by Britain and strongly supported by West Germany, the twelve members of the European Community voted to withdraw their top-ranking diplomats from Tehran in protest. So did Canada, Sweden and Norway. Iran swiftly retaliated by pulling most of its own ambassadors out of Western Europe...
...free speech. But in Iran, a vastly different phenomenon was taking shape: the Ayatullah had seized upon Rushdie's book as a flaming spear with which to halt his country's creeping trend toward moderation. Within days, the "liberals" who had seemed to be in the ascendant in Tehran dropped from sight. They had been trying to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties with the West in order to rebuild the country following its disastrous eight-year war with Iraq...
...Tehran radio reported that the Iranian parliament fully supported Khomeini's policy of "keeping aloof from the Great Satan," the U.S., and "cutting relations with colonialist Britain." One of the Tehran regime's leading hard- liners, Premier Hussein Mousavi, accused the West of "cultural conspiracy" and declared that "Iran's firm decisions on the ((Rushdie)) issue will ensure the country's independence and dignity." Small wonder that the best-known pragmatists had run for cover...