International Iran frees 10 more

Press, 21 November 1979, Page 8

International Iran frees 10 more

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Ten more American hostages left the .United States Embassy in Teheran yesterday for the airport, the American Broadcasting Company has reported from the Iranian capital. A Swiss airliner was waiting there to fly them to West Germany to join three others released on Monday. An A.B.C. reporter in Teheran said the hostages — four women and six black men — were driven out of the embassy gates in three cars. Two women and one black man remained among the captives. The move, 17 days after the embassy was occupied by Muslim students, was seen to be unlikely to defuse the steadily worsening conflict between Iran and the United States. Three hostages were flown put of Iran on Monday following orders from the revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, to free women and blacks among the 80 people held at the embassy. The 79-year-old Iranian leader has said that the remaining hostages will be tried for espionage unless the United States agrees to Iran's demand for the extradition of the ousted Shah to stand trial in Iran. In a move that clearly underlined Iran’s intention to step up diplomatic and economic pressure on Washington, the Foreign Minister (Mr Abolhassan Bani-Sadr) called on oil exporting countries to stop accepting United States dollars in payment for their oil. At the same time, the Commerce Minister (Mr Reza Sadr) indicated that Iran intended to cut all economic ties with the United States and said his country planned to stop using dollars to pay for its imports. Mr Bani-Sadr said: “Oil money is what supports the

dollar as a world currency. It’s been known for 10 years that oil-exporting countries have said they will not accept dollars for oil. But they still are. •‘Replacing the dollar by a basket of non-dollar currencies is the real way of putting an end to dependence.” In a swift reaction to the Iranian statement, United States Administration officials in Washington said that Teheran’s proposal was unlikely to win the acceptance of other members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Iran is the second-largest producer in 0.P.E.C., after Saudi Arabia. Iranian journalists asked one of the first hostages released, Miss Lillian Johnson, about forged money which the students claim was found in the embassy intended to be circulated to cause inflation. Miss Johnson replied: “I am only a secretary. 1 have no idea about this.” She said she had seen the counterfeit money, in Iranian rials and West German marks, but seemed to mean that the students had shown it to her during her captivity. Miss Joan Walsh, an embassy political secretary, was asked whether she had seen classified documents referring to incidents in Iran’s troubled border provinces and others referring to efforts by the exiled former Prime Minister, Dr Shapur Bakhtiar, to build up opposition to the Islamic republic. Miss Walsh said she had first seen the documents when they were shown to her by the students. ‘‘They were not normal documents,” she said. The reference to such documents by Iranian journalists suggested to Western reporters that the students might perhaps have more secret documents than they have sof ar revealed.