- "If you had any honour, humanity or mercy, you would
do better to have pity on the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples for whom you
have caused an earthquake. Is Jesus happy with the evil Bush, who invokes
religion and Christianity?"
-
- WASHINGTON -- Iran rejected
American "earthquake diplomacy" yesterday, turning down Washington's
offer of a a high-level humanitarian mission to the devastated city of
Bam.
-
- The mission would have been led by Senator Elizabeth
Dole and an unidentified member of the Bush family.
-
- Adam Ereli, the US State Department spokesman, said:
"We have heard back from the Iranians that, given the current situation
in Bam and all that is going on there now, it would be preferable to hold
such a visit in abeyance.
-
- "Therefore we are not pursuing this further at the
moment."
-
- Mrs Dole, one of the grandes dames of the Republican
party and a former head of the American Red Cross, had approached the State
Department for permission to join a Red Cross mission to Iran after the
earthquake last Friday, which has left at least 30,000 dead in Bam.
-
- Her request coincided with a top-level discussion led
by President George W Bush about how to help the Iranian people. Mrs Dole's
mission was then incorporated in administration plans, and officials began
exploring the possibility of adding a member of the Bush family to the
team.
-
- The proposed mission would have been the first public
visit to Iran by US envoys since the 1979-81 hostage crisis, when 52 Americans
were held for more than a year in the Teheran embassy.
-
- In the Iran-Contra scandal, Col Oliver North and Robert
MacFarlane, both national security officials, travelled secretly on Irish
passports to Iran to discuss an arms-for-hostages swap.
-
- The new mission was described as humanitarian and symbolic,
rather than an opportunity for diplomatic discussions with Teheran. Mrs
Dole, the wife of the former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican
presidential candidate, Robert Dole, is known in Washington for sticking
to briefing notes prepared by aides, and floundering visibly when asked
about topics that range more widely.
-
- Iranian reaction was divided along familiar lines, with
reformists in parliament welcoming what one called "the American government's
positive behaviour".
-
- But hardline clerics demonstrated the likely problems
by castigating Washington during prayers yesterday.
-
- In Bam, on the first Friday since the earthquake, Imam
Asghar Asqari declared that US aid would not wipe the slate clean for "evil"
Mr Bush, and denounced America as a "warmongering oppressor"
occupying Iraq.
-
- President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, who was once seen
as the reformists' great hope, said the aid was not a harbinger of better
relations, though figures close to him offered "goodwill" to
Washington.
-
- In Teheran, Ahmad Janati, a leading hardline ayatollah,
dismissed US aid offers as a diplomatic ploy.
-
- "But they got a slap in the face," he said,
in an apparent reference to Mr Khatami's public rejection of improved ties.
Ayatollah Janati said disagreements could not be forgotten "just for
a few scraps of aid".
-
- Addressing Americans, he added: "If you had any
honour, humanity or mercy, you would do better to have pity on the Iraqi
and Palestinian peoples for whom you have caused an earthquake.
-
- "Is Jesus happy with the evil Bush, who invokes
religion and Christianity?" the ayatollah asked.
-
- The Bush administration ceased even arm's-length talks
with Iranian officials in May, after suicide bombs in the Saudi capital,
Riyadh, linked to al-Qa'eda operatives held in Iran.
-
- After the earthquake, Mr Bush dispatched a medical and
rescue squad and suspended sanctions that would have barred the flow of
money and relief materials.
-
- Nearly 100 American doctors and rescue workers were allowed
to fly in several planeloads of equipment this week, including a portable
hospital emblazoned with the US flag.
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=
/news/2004/01/03/wiran03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/03/ixnewstop.html
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