Kurds forget battle with Teheran, offer to fight against U.S.

Press, 27 November 1979, Page 8

Kurds forget battle with Teheran, offer to fight against U.S.

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Iran’s rebellious Kurds have announced a truce in their fight against the Government and vowed to join its troops to confront any military action against Iran by the United States.

In a development which threw into sharp focus the depth of anti-American ‘eelings in Iran, the Kurd'stan Democratic Party broadcast a statement over the official radio saying that it was prepared to mobilise all its forces to fight alongside the Government against anv foreign attack. The statement said the Kurdish Democratic Partv would observe a 20-day cease-fire from noon on Sunday provided Government troops and Islamic Revolutionary Guards ended all military operations in Kurdistan. i Autonomv-seekine Kurdish guerrillas have fous'nt a 'series of bloody battles with i Government troops since the turmoil of the Islamic revolution swept awav the Shah and his instruments of oppression in *he wild mountains of Kurdistan. Mr Carter ordered a powerful naval task force headed by the aircraft carrier Kittv Hawk to ioin other American warshins already near Iranian waters. This anneared to have tolled Iranians into closing ranks rather than softening their attitude in the crisis over the extradition of the deposed Shah. At a mass demonstration in ciinpnrt of the students holding the embassy. Leftist groups including the militant pa/hvoan-f-or Sundav ioined strict Muslims in front of the embassy to vent their fnrv over thf United States Government’s refusal to extradite the Shah. He is being treated fot cancer in New York. Some estimates put the crowd at more than half a million. It was one of the h : eaest demonstrations since 'the embassv drama began. ! The students are backet I by Iran’s revolutionan header. Ayatollah Rnhoi’at I Khomeinv, who said last I week that he would not be able to prevent them from

killing the hostages if the United States resorted to force. The students allowed United States Congressman, George Hansen, in Teheran on a private initiative, to enter the sprawling compound on Sunday and talk to several of the hostages. I Mr Hansen said afterwards they were well and in good health. Both the Ayatollah and his student followers have said that evidence found at the embassy proved the hostages were guilty of spying. The Iranian Foreign Minister (Mr Abolhassan Bani- ! Sadr), in the latest of a istring of conciliatory statements, was quoted as saying on Sunday night that a formal statement by the United States Government condemning the rule of the ousted Shah could lead to the release of the hostages. Diplomats in Teheran noted that similar statements by the Foreign Minister over the last three weeks had been promptly contradicted by the Ayatollah, the only man to whom the students listen. Mr Hansen, an Idaho Republican, said he spoke with a substantial number of hosI tages. He said the Ameri leans’ hands were loosely I tied with a strip Of white cloth and they were kept (about three to a room. II Mr Hansen was surI rounded by a good-natured I crowd of fist-waving Iranians as he emerged from I the embassy. The crowd i began chanting “Yankee go home, Yankee go home," but j quickly switched to “People yes, Carter no.” I Mr Hansen told the demonstrators of his proposal for a United States Congressional inquiry into Iranian I charges that the Shah is re■lsnonsible for the deaths of i 60,000 persons and for plundering billions of dollars > from the nation. • The United States Govern-

ment has dissociated itself from Mr Hansen’s visit. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Sean Macßride, returned to Paris a; the weekend after three days of unsuccessful attempts in Teheran to break the crisis deadlock. Meanwhile, an Iranian Ayatollah has been quoted as saying that the extradition of the deposed Shah from the United States is not essential. Ayatollah Sayed Kazem Shariat-Madari, Iran’s second most influential religious leader, told the liberal Madrid daily, “El Pais,” in an interview in the holy city of Qom that the Shah’s extradition “appears to be the greatest aspiration of Iranians. But I do not think it is such an essential matter.” Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, whom “El Pais” said was the spiritual head of Qom before Ayatollah Khomeiny returned from exile, said the seizure of hostages at the United States Embassy in Teheran would not have happened if he had been in Ayatollah Khomeiny’s place. “If I had been in Khoi.einy’s place such a thing would not have happened because there are people who have put their hands in our affairs and have interfered in these matters,” he said. “They are the same people who have pushed the people into considering the Shah’s extradition essential.” He added: “The occupation of the embassy was done in the name of the revolution, not in the name of Islamic laws . . . There will be a compromise if the Americans act reasonably.” “El Pais” said Ayatollah Shariat-Madari belonged to Iran’s first government after the overthrow of the Shah but had withdrawn to Qom in apparent disagreement with Ayatollah Khomeiny’s rule.