Iran election inquiry means hostages may wait until June

Press, 28 March 1980, Page 6

Iran election inquiry means hostages may wait until June

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Iran’s future Parliament now seems unlikely to begin discussing the issue of the American hostages in the occupied United States Embassy in Teheran before the first half of June at the earliest.

Government leaders have Baid that a Second round of elections to the Parliament will be delayed for at least a month because of an inquiry into allegations of fraud in (he first ballot. The second round had previously been expected to be held on April 4, Government leaders predicting that the 270-seat Parliament would begin work by mid-May.

But members of the ruling Revolutionary Council said yesterday that a commission investigating the first election had begun work only last Tuesday and would take a month to make its report. President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr told reporters: ’‘We will have to wait a pionth for the results of the inquiry ... and then let us hope that we will be able to organise the second round as soon as possible afterwards.”

The revolutionary leader, A y a t o 11 a h Ruhollah Khomeiny, has given the Parliament the task of setting terms for the release of the 49 Americans,' held. by their Muslim student captors tince November 4 to demand the return of the deposed

Shah to face trial in Iran. A Revolutionary Council spokesman,- Mr Hassan Habibi, said the former Shah’s departure from Panama to Egypt on the eve of extradition proceedings against him had been “a flight in the face of Iran’s legitimate judicial measures. “It is a flagrant interference of the Americans in the matter, and in any case the case against the Shah is overwhelming and that’s why he prefers to flee,” he said.

Mr Habibi said there had been no discussion within the council of a possible transfer of the hostages to Government control. The Foreign Minister (Mr Sadeq Qotbzadeh) said he had suggested such a move to the Panamanians at the weekend as a way of encouraging them to detain the Shah.

Referring to comments earlier ■ by the council’s secretary, Mr Mohammad Beheshti, that the general opinion in Iran now favoured a trial of the hostages, Mr Qotbzadeh said no such discussion had ' taken place: within the Government. | Iranian State radio has! issued a strong attack on I

the Soviet Union, accusing it of exploiting Afghanistan, by buying its gas at half the international price. The attack came after the breakdown of talks in Teheran in which Iran, a traditional supplier of gas to the Soviet Union, failed to win I agreement for a five-fold I price increase from a visiting Soviet delegation. I Although the radio does I not necessarily reflect Government thinking, the strong i attack in a news commentary came after vigorous denunciations of the continued Soviet presence in neighbouring Afghanistan by Ayatollah Khomeiny and President Bani-Sadr, last week.

In a separate commentary, the radio invited leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Party to join in a broadcast debate on the refusal of its militants to turn in their arms despite the relative peace in the region.

The K.D.P. leader, Mr Abdolrahman Qasemloo, told the radio the Kurds would disarm only when. Kurdistan enjoyed autonomy and security and when democracy had been established in Iran.