The Ayatollah calls party move a victory

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 11

The Ayatollah calls party move a victory

1 NZPA-Reuter Teheran The revolutionary ieader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho- . meiny, has voiced warm. t approval for the dissolution ! of Iran’s Tudeh (Communist) ’ Party, a move followed closely by orders for the expulsion of 18 Soviet diplomats. A summary of a message from Khomeiny to the nation carried by the national news agency I.R.N.A. did not mention the expulsion. But it hailed the move against the pro-Soviet Tudeb, saying: “The Iranian nation should be thankful and appreciate this victory with its various political repercussions and must further support all the Islamic defenders.” Khomeiny’s message was . issued yesterday and dominated the front pages of Teheran newspapers. The Iranian authorities announced the dissolution of the Tudeh after showing televised interviews in : which arrested leaders of the party confessed to spying for the Soviet Union and , declared that Marxism had no place in an Islamic Republic. V At the same time, the ' Foreign Ministry called in the Soviet Ambassador, Mr V. K. Boldyrev, and told him that 18 of his diplomats ; had 48 hours to leave the country.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the diplomats had been “interfering with the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic through establishing contacts and taking advantage of treacherous and mercenary agents.” The Tudeh Party, established in 1941, had been the only remaining potential source of opposition to the Government still operating legally in Iran, and moves against it had long appeared a possibility. Ayatollah Khomeiny’s message praised his followers for dealing with such groups as the Muslim People’s Party in northern Iran and the Mujahedin E Khalq, Islamic Leftists responsible for a campaign

of bomb blasts and assassinations in 1981. The crackdown on the Tudeh Party and the expulsion order came after the defection to Britain last year of a Soviet diplomat formerly based in Teheran, Vladimir Kuzichkin. Western diplomats said that they believed information given by Mr Kuzichkin might have been shared with a number of countries and some material about Tudeh activities might have found its way to the Iranian Government. Officials at the Soviet Embassy in Teheran turned away reporters asking to see diplomats to seek comment on the expulsions. The scene around the cm- . bassy, a complex of buildings in a high-walled compound in central Teheran, was later quiet with no sign of anything unusual—a contrast to the heated demonstrations which marked the Islamic Revolution’s conflict with the United States in 1979. That reached a climax when militant students invaded the United States embassy in Teheran in November 1979 and held more than 50 diplomats hostage for more than a year.

Meanwhile, the official Soviet news agency Tass rejected charges that Tudeh was involved in spying for the Kremlin.