Iranian Leader Hints at Better Ties With U.S.

TEHRAN — On the eve of celebrations marking the 14th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, President Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday indicated a softening in Tehran’s position on relations with the United States.

While blasting Washington on a host of issues--from criticizing its support for Israel to charging it has abandoned Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina to complaining about Iranian assets frozen in the United States--Rafsanjani also said, “If the United States forms its policy, we do not see any reason for continued severance of relations”--a phrase pointedly repeated during a lengthy press conference here.

He later added: “Before talks, there must be goodwill. . . . In general the United States should first prove its goodwill so that a decision can be made.”

And in a broader context, he said: “Our policy is not one of making enemies. On the contrary, by making efforts to solve the problems and eliminate obstacles to friendship, we move in the direction of improving relations with world countries.”

The tenor of the Iranian leader’s remarks reflected a subtle shift from the harsh anti-American rhetoric of similar press conferences in the past.

It also came 10 days after an editorial in the English-language Tehran Times, widely considered to be a mouthpiece for Rafsanjani’s government, issued a peace offering to the new Clinton Administration on Inauguration Day.

“Any sign of goodwill will be responded to by goodwill from the Iranian side,” the Times said in an ironic use of a phrase used four years ago in former President Bush’s inaugural speech--an offer that was roundly rebuffed by Iran.

The Tehran Times editorial also said that President Clinton has a “golden opportunity” to make a fresh start in relations. “Let us hope for the best,” it concluded.

Another indication of a subtle shift is the absence of anti-American rhetoric during the 10-day celebration of the revolution’s anniversary, the kind of occasion when “Death to America” and references to the “Great Satan” usually appear in posters, banners and graffiti around the capital.

Finally, according to a well-placed source, last fall Iran was reportedly prepared to allow its U.N. ambassador to hold quiet talks with Edward Perkins, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The United Nations is often a place where envoys of countries that otherwise have little or no contact hold private discussions. The Iran-Perkins meeting reportedly did not take place after Iran concluded in October that Bush would lose his reelection bid.

In light of this Islamic republic’s chronic economic problems as it struggles with its own version of shock therapy, the subtle shift evident in all of these events almost certainly reflects reluctant acceptance of political necessity rather than any fundamental diplomatic moderation, according to Iranian analysts and diplomats in Tehran.

Indeed, public discontent and political apathy have grown to the point that the popularity of Rafsanjani, the strongest public figure among Iran’s revolutionaries, appears to be at a new low. Iranian journalists suggested Sunday that Rafsanjani may have held his press conference in part to show his constituency that he is still an attraction for the local and international media as he faces reelection in June.

Rafsanjani confirmed Sunday that he will stand for a second and final four-year term permitted under the constitution.

Given the erratic course of U.S.-Iranian relations--from the 1979-81 hostage drama in Tehran and the anti-American terrorism by Iranian-backed extremists groups in Lebanon during the early 1980s to the 1985-86 arms-for-hostages debacle and the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf--there is also no guarantee that an overture by either side would lead anywhere anytime soon.

Iran’s teasing gestures may turn out to be more like trial balloons than any turning point in the country’s troubled relations with the West. Rafsanjani indicated that he did not anticipate any immediate thaw in relations with Washington, “given the present circumstances.”

But his press conference, for which journalists were summoned from throughout the West and the Middle East with little advance notice, was interesting in the current semi-conciliatory context.

On one of the most contentious issues for the West, for example, the Iranian leader tried to distance himself from the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s religious edict pronouncing a “death sentence” on Salman Rushdie, author of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” for blasphemy against Islam.

Rafsanjani did not revoke the sentence, which his religious rank as a hojatoleslam does not empower him to do. But as a chief of state, he played down the edict as an “opinion” and a “technical issue.”

He also implied that the main reason it was not revoked was because Khomeini died less than four months after an uproar over “The Satanic Verses” in the Muslim world led him to condemn Rushdie, who has since been forced to live in hiding in Britain under the protection of Scotland Yard.

“This verdict was a technical issue. The person who issued this verdict is the one who will have to decide about changing it or not changing it,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the leader is now dead . . . and he cannot change the verdict.” Notably, he did not refer to Khomeini, the most revered figure in revolutionary Iran, by either name or title.

Pressed about an upcoming seminar in Tehran on Rushdie, Rafsanjani virtually dismissed it, noting that it is being sponsored by a private organization, “not by the government, just as people are free to hold seminars in the West.”

Rafsanjani’s remarks are unlikely to satisfy U.S. and European leaders angered by the Rushdie case and other Iranian violations of human rights. But it did reflect an awareness in Iran that the Rushdie case must somehow be resolved.

On a host of other controversial issues, Rafsanjani also tried to refute international allegations about Iran’s aggressive intentions.

He denied that Iran is rearming itself with the intention of becoming the regional superpower in the Persian Gulf. He said that only 1.5% of Iran’s $36-billion annual budget is being spent to rebuild its arsenal after its devastating eight-year war with Iraq, a fraction of the amount being spent by some oil-rich Persian Gulf emirates--a claim substantiated by Western intelligence.

Rafsanjani also denied that the world’s only modern theocracy is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, despite former CIA Director Robert Gates’ statement last year that Iran could probably be a nuclear power by the end of the decade.

“In principle we consider nuclear and mass-destruction weapons to be inhuman,” Rafsanjani said. “We have never been and will never be after them.”

On the subject of the export of Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist revolution, Rafsanjani said that his country’s presence in Sudan is for purposes of development, not military training, as claimed by Western intelligence agencies. But he said Iran will support Palestinians “in any way we can to serve justice for the oppressed people.”