British Foreign Secretary to Visit Iran for Anti-Terrorism SupportBritish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will pay a visit to Iran next week to rally support for the US-led war against terrorism, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Friday.The visit will be the first by a British foreign secretary to Iran since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Straw was quoted as saying that the decision on his trip to Iran came after British Prime Minister Tony Blair's phone talks with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. On Thursday, Blair had a telephone conversation with Khatami on a chartered jet en route to the United States to talk with U.S. President George W. Bush on the current critical situation following last week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Blair described his conversation with Khatami as "remarkable" because the latter gave his full solidarity in terms of what had happened to the U.S. and strong condemnation of terrorism, IRNA reported. He also highlighted a new relationship between Britain and Iran and Iran's important role in a global fight against terrorism. Britain's ties with Iran suffered a setback due to a religious decree issued by Iran in 1989 to call for the death of British writer Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy against Islam. The Iranian-British relations have been improving since Iran said in September 1998 that it would not seek to apply the decree. |
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