Rafsanjani okays Iran-U.S. meeting

In an unexpected meeting with 45 moderate Members of Parliament here on Monday, former president and head of Expediency Council ((EC) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has okayed talks between Iranian and American legislators.

The 45 MPs, who are all members of the Executive Construction Party (ECP), the closest Iranian group to Rafsanjani, met with the former president on the occasion of the new term of Expediency Council.

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, the head of ECP faction in the parliament, Mohsen Rezaie, spokesman for the EC said:

"Head of the EC believes that there is no ban on bilateral socio-cultural and economic relations between Iran and the U.S. Thus, Iranian MPs can hold talks with their American counterparts."

Rafsanjani was quoted as saying that "it is forbidden for government officials to have any sorts of contact or negotiation with Americans till Iran's conditions be accepted by the U.S."

Apparently the U.S. diplomatic pressure on Iran has prompted Iranian officials to review their macro policy with respect to different crisis occurring around them. Rezaie said earlier that a special committee would be set up inside the council to review Iran's macro political policy "to break the blind alleys".

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, also on an unexpected trip to Beirut that coincided with Powell's trip to the region, asked Lebanon's Hezbollah to restrain their anger from Zionists atrocities in the occupied territories and avoid giving Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a pretext to open another front in South Lebanon.

Kharrazi's stance in Beirut infuriated Iran's anti-American hardliners who believed that war is the absolute solution that can put an end to the crisis in the occupied territories.

Jomhuri Eslami daily, a mouthpiece of Iran's hardliners, condemned Kharrazi's trip to Lebanon and called his stance 'undiplomatic' and 'strange'. Reformists believed that Iran must solve its problem with U.S. in one way or another.

Saeed Leylaz, a prominent reformist activist, told Gulf News: "Iran has not got any other alternative except solving its problems with U.S., otherwise America will put us under more pressure through creating problems between us and our neighbouring countries, something which is absolutely against our national interests."

He went ahead to say: "Iran-U.S. political tensions will produce heavy prices for Iran."