Nearly two weeks after the United States President George W. Bush signaled out Iran as part of an "axis of evil," the Islamic Republic’s reformist President called upon Iranians to turn out in force for an upcoming anti-U.S. protest, according to CNN.
Speaking on Iranian television, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said, "the recent, unfounded assertions, which are insulting to the Iranian people," advance his call for all Iranians to participate in Monday's demonstration in Tehran.
A large attendance, the president said, would show Iranian unity in defending the country's honor and independence.
The demonstration this Monday falls on the 23rd anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, when Shiite Muslim fundamentalists overthrew a U.S.-backed regime headed by the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In November 1979, Islamists supported by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution's spiritual and supreme leader, took 50 Americans in the U.S. Embassy hostage.
Subsequently, Washington and Tehran have not had diplomatic relations ever since, even after the hostages were released 444 days later.
Khomeini's successor, hard-liner Ayatollah Ali Khameini and his religious and military allies have kept up the harsh, anti-American line.
However, Khatami, many members of Iran's reform-minded parliament and many young Iranians have advocated a more pro-Western position, with some even urging for renewed relations with the United States superpower.
In his State of the Union address before Congress, the U.S. President declared Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq, as a country developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting terrorists.
Several countries, including France and the United Arab Emirates, criticized Bush's recent remarks.
Al-Qaeda Presence
A three-member delegation from Iran's pro-reform parliament recently went on a mission to the Afghan and Pakistani borders to "investigate information on the presence of members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda" there, AFP cited a Norouz newspaper report from Saturday.
"We went to the border regions to check on U.S. allegations over the presence in Iran of members" of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban militia, conveyed Meissam Saidi, a member of the Iranian parliamentary committee on national security.
However, Saidi, a reformist deputy, said the "parliamentary inquiry had found that some countries and foreign secret services were seeking to move" Taliban and al-Qaeda members through Iran. He declined to name any specific country or secret service.
"Our secret services are aware of these attempts and have already succeeded in arresting several people who illegally infiltrated Iran," Saidi told Norouz.
Saidi, who headed the delegation, also restated Tehran's support for the interim leadership established in the Afghani capital.
On Thursday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi dismissed as lies U.S. charges that members of the al-Qaeda organization had found safe haven in the Islamic Republic of Iran and added, "Not one member of the al-Qaeda network has been identified in Iran."
Ali Yunessi added that if any members were found, they would be expelled to their home countries. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
