 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Unwelcome advances
By Azadeh MoaveniEighteen months ago US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered to work with Iran to draw a road map to healthier relations. Not surprisingly, she was met with scepticism by the Iranian government and little has changed in this most bitter of modern bilateral relationships. Martin Indyk, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, made the second official overture of the last 20 years on 14 October, inviting Iran to an unconditional dialogue where "parallel steps to (dealing) with issues of (mutual) concern" could be discussed. This too, however, seems to have met with little success.
Albright's offer, which followed the election of moderate President Mohamed Khatami on a more liberal foreign policy platform, was designed simply to inch towards engagement, and its novelty was intended to serve as a concession in itself. That aim failed, and this time the US sweetened what amounts to the same offer by clamping down on the poorly-disguised Washington DC-based face of Mojahedin-Khalq, the best organised Iranian opposition group outside Iran. Iran has long complained over Western shelter of groups opposing the Tehran regime, claiming that American rhetoric over Iran's support of terrorism hypocritically excludes American support for opposition groups who use violence against Tehran within its own borders.
However neither the Americans' conciliatory gesture nor the direct call for talks has inspired great enthusiasm in Tehran, which stonily reiterates that improved relations require the US to compensate for its past behaviour. "Tangible, practical and meaningful steps" are needed, according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, speaking on Iranian television. And official American efforts, whether from the State Department or from President Bill Clinton himself, have not convinced Iranians that they will fare any better than Iraq has when faced with monolithic American conditions for ending economic sanctions, such as demonstrating that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.
Even though Washington's offer may appear slight, it comes, nevertheless, amid sizable Congressional resistance to any sort of negotiations with Iran. These legislators, who consider the Paris-based Mojahedin to be a legitimate, democratic opposition organisation, Iranian analysts say are merely following traditional American policy towards Iran in supporting a shady opposition group in the absence of popular and more defensible alternatives. "What Americans don't realise," says a member of the liberal Tehran-based Iranian National Party, "is that the Mojahedin lost any support it might have had in Iran after it fought with the Iraqis during the Iran-Iraq war, killing young Iranian recruits rather than just high-placed opponents."
New restrictions on the activities of the Mojahedin are welcome, Speaker of Parliament Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri told the London-based Arabic daily, Al-Hayat in an interview this week. By treating the 'National Council for Resistance (NCR)' as an alias for the Mojahedin, its leaders will be dealt with in the same way as other alleged terrorists, with their visas restricted, and assets seized. While it is unlikely that this move is a sufficient expression of American good will for wary Khatami supporters to justify pursuing dialogue with Washington, it does remove one obstacle in the way. Opposition to the Mojahedin is the lone instance of unity among the moderate and conservative currents in Iran, which are otherwise starkly divided over foreign policy.
For its part, the US has demanded that Iran change its policies on a number of highly-contested fronts -- its opposition to the Middle East peace process, its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, and its alleged support for terrorism -- before it will consider lifting economic sanctions against the country. Iran, on the other hand, wants the US to stop interfering in Iran's internal affairs, to unfreeze Iranian assets and to allow oil and gas pipelines across its territory as a gesture of good will that would justify beginning negotiations.
Indyk said that until now the Iranian response to American overtures has been "hide-bound and unimaginative" and that the US has pursued other avenues, such as cultural exchanges, to broaden engagement. But even such innocuous avenues have not been without complications. A delegation of American graduate students who were spending the summer in Iran were mysteriously and suddenly withdrawn from the country two weeks early, ostensibly in response to a perceived threat to their safety. Some of the academics, however, said they never received the promised explanation for the decision, and rumours spread that one of their number, who had acknowledged connections with American intelligence, was on the verge of being arrested by Iranian security officials.
Cultural and scholarly exchange is impossible in such a tense political climate, said one of the academics. "When both sides are so nervous about our simple presence," he said, "any false step can turn into a political disaster."
