Iranian President Criticizes Bush's Remarks on Iran

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday lashed out at US President George W. Bush's "interventionist remarks" on Iran's ongoing reform movement, the official IRNA news agency reported in Tehran.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Khatami said that the Iranian nation and government will not give in to foreign threats and will firmly proceed with its principles of independence, progress, morality and freedom.

Khatami urged those who are "pursuing war-mongering policy underthe influence of certain lobbies to get rid of the false interpretation of situation in Iran and apologize to the Iranian nation and government for the misdeeds of the past."

"We think that only an apology from the United States will create crack in the long wall of mistrust in Tehran-Washington relations," Khatami said.

Making such interventionist statement by the US president is nota new thing, he said, adding that the problem with the US administration lies with their "illogical arrogance and false interpretation of the global issues," including that of Iran.

Deploring the extremist policies as part of the US administration's approach toward the global issues, Khatami said they threaten the world with war and subversive actions, which "have posed a threat to the entire world and the US interests at first."

Referring to the history of Iran-US relations,Khatami said that the 1953 U.S.-engineered military coup has been the thorny issue in the history of relations between the two nations.

Khatami pointed out that the former (Clinton) administration admitted to direct US involvement in the military coup against the national government of Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953, which helped the deposed Pahlavi regime to continue for another 25 years.

"It is surprising that the United States says it supports democracy while it has always been the supporter of every military coup taking place in the world community," Khatami said, adding that "Washington has always supported unpopular and despotic regimes around the world."

On Friday, Bush said that in the last two Iranian presidential and parliamentary elections, the vast majority of the Iranian people voted for political and economic reforms, but the government's "uncompromising, destructive policies" led to "far toolittle" changes in the daily lives of the Iranian people.

When Iranian people move towards freedom and tolerance, the United States would be a close ally of Iran, Bush said.

The United States and Iran have severed relations since 1980 after Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took its staff hostage for 444 days.

(Xinhua News Agency July 16, 2002)