Roundup: Iran Is Neither With US Nor With Terrorists

As the United States has reached out to Iran for cooperation against terrorism, the Islamic republic has found itself locked in a terminological dispute over the definition of "terrorism" with the US and thereby in shaky ground for joining hands with its arch-foe.

The US government has expressed appreciation of Iran's swift and "positive" humanitarian judgement on the devastating terror attacks on New York and Washington on September 11.

Given the more than two decades of animosity between Iran and the U.S., Iran's compassionate gestures to the U.S. has been exceptional.

Echoing what Tehran Mayor Morteza Alviri has said, Mayor of Isfahan Mohammad Ali Javadi has sent a letter of condolences to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, expressing sympathy to the victims of the U.S. tragedy.

In the holy city of Qom, the conservative Seminary Teachers Association has joined the chorus of sympathizers by releasing a statement Sunday, condemning massacres of innocent people in any form and in any part of the world, and offering condolences to the victims of the attacks.

On its diplomatic front, Iran is hosting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is the highest British official to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Straw's trip came after a "remarkable conversation" between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and moderate Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday.

Straw is expected to exchange views with Iranian officials on bilateral ties, the terrorist attacks, and Washington's determination to hit those behind the attacks.

In other related developments, President Khatami has coordinated Iran's stance on combating terrorism with leaders of Russia, Egypt and Syria in the past two days.

In addition, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi has had a flurry of phone calls with his Indian and Saudi counterparts to call for the international efforts to curb terrorism.

Iran's active role in rapping terrorism and its desire to wipe it out has prompted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to consider exploring ways of including Iran into the U.S.-led anti- terrorism coalition.

But the two countries have found an almost unbridgeable chasm in identifying "terrorism."

The U.S. still categorizes Iran as "the most active state sponsor of terrorism," accusing it of supporting international terrorism, particularly Arab and Palestinian extremist organizations opposing a peace with Israel.

Although the U.S. government has expressed its interest in working with Iran to combat terrorism, it underlined the necessity "to fight against all forms of terrorism, not just one kind of terrorism."

A State Department spokeswoman said last week that "if Iran will oppose all terrorism, including support for Hezbollah (Lebanese resistance guerrilla group), then this possibility could be explored."

Yet, Iranian officials have their own understandings of " terrorism."

Iran's Interior Minister Abdolvahed Musavi Lari said on Monday that Iran's Islamic system is against terrorism as Iranians have been victims of terrorism.

Foreign Minister Kharazi has recently noted the difficulty of defining "terrorism," saying that bombings by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Islamic Jihad (Holy War), both radical Islamic groups, were a legitimate form of resistance against Israel's occupation.

"These people are merely defending their own land," he stated.

Iran has accused Israel, a close ally of the U.S., of pursuing " state terrorism", and provided financial and moral support for the Palestinian uprising against the Jewish state.

At the April international conference on backing the Palestinian intifada (uprising) in Tehran, Iran, along with over 30 Muslim countries, condemned Israel's practices as resorting to means of terrorism, brutality and expansionism against the Palestinians.

"There is no universal consensus on the definition of terrorism and terrorists," Iran's Majlis (parliament) deputy Hassan Qashqavi said on Monday, quoted by the hard-line Tehran Times.

He added that at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, a large number of non-governmental organizations regarded Israel as a terrorist regime, but the U.S. delegation refused to accept it.

"Until a globally accepted definition of terrorism is established, it will not be clear which groups and individuals are really terrorists," he argued.

The U.S. has made it clear that all other nations have either to be with it or with the terrorists.

But Iran, which condemns the terror attacks while holding divergent views on the general idea of terrorism with the U.S., is discreetly treading a middle line, signaling that it is neither with the U.S. nor with the terrorists.






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