Gorbachev, Rafsanjani agree to more co-operation

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 8

Gorbachev, Rafsanjani agree to more co-operation

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, and an influential Iranian leader have agreed in talks in the Kremlin to pursue better relations after a long period of strained ties. The visit by Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, caps several months of improving links between Iran and the Soviet Union, an atheist State of which the Islamic Government in Teheran has long been suspicious. The two, who met yesterday, agreed that “never before had the two countries had such chances for expanding their co-operation,” Tass news agency reported. During Mr Rafsanjani’s visit this week documents

would be signed extending Soviet-Iranian co-opera-tion to the year 2000, Tass said, without giving details.

Iran’s late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, who died on June 3, called the Soviet Union a Satanic force in his will, which was last revised in 1987.

But Mr Rafsanjani, the man most likely to emerge as Iran’s new leader, said on June 8 that the Ayatollah had told him before his death that relations with Moscow should be improved.

He is the most senior Iranian leader to visit the Soviet capital since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. In Teheran, the official Irna news agency in a Moscow dispatch quoted Mr Gorbachev as having

told Mr Rafsanjani, “We are seeking ways to strengthen ties and friendship with the Islamic Republic of Iran and your excellency’s visit is a good development in mutual relations. “We think we can further bilateral co-operation on the basis of respect for each other’s interests and good neighbourliness. We explicitly declare that our country supports your anti-imperialist revolution.”

Iran said Mr Rafsanjani replied that before Mr Gorbachev came to power "there were some points of concern for your neighbours ... but your way of thinking has created peace among your neighbours, so much so that they can deal with you more conveniently.” Mr Gorbachev, who

gave Mr Rafsanjani an official welcome in the Kremlin’s ornate St George’s Hall before their talks, said he was sure the visit was carrying out the late Ayatollah’s wishes, Tass reported. Mr Gorbachev stressed that Moscow did not expect Teheran to give up its values, adding that the Kremlin would do nothing to damage Iran’s interests. "We are ready to go as far as Iran is ready to meet us halfway,” he said. “In doing so, let the Iranian revolution preserve its values, its goals just as our perestroika (reform) is inspired by its (own) values and its ideas.”

He noted that there had been past difficulties but said Moscow had always sought to take a balanced attitude.