From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, 21 Jan 93 (from haluk)
Date: 22 Jan 1993 10:34:28 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

 -Shevardnadze leaves Iran after two-day visit
 -Dissidents say Afghan offensive halted

 Subject: Shevardnadze leaves Iran after two-day visit

        ATHENS, Greece (UPI) -- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze left
 Tehran late Wednesday at the end of a two-day official visit during
 which he signed 15 agreements with the Islamic Republic, Tehran radio
 said.
        Shevardnadze, who held two rounds of discussions with Iranian
 President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, expressed hope that relations
 between the two countries would be further developed.
        Tehran radio monitored in Athens said Shevardnadze and Rafsanjani
 signed a joint communique before the Georgian leader flew out of the
 Iranian capital.
        The Georgian president told reporters at Tehran's Mehrabad airport
 that the 15 agreements he signed at the end of his trip gave hope that
 relations between the two countries had been put on a sound footing.
        The Iranian state radio said the agreements were in the economic,
 financial, cultural, educational, technical and political fields.
        Shevardnadze was quoted as saying the peoples of Georgia and Iran
 ``are faithful neighbors,'' and that his visit would serve to renew an
 age-old friendship between them.
        Rafsanjani, in response, said changing conditions in the region made
 it possible for Georgia to choose its own friends, and the Georgian
 president had shown that his country considered Iran to be a neighbor
 with which it could cooperate.
        ``Of course, we also welcome this,'' the Iranian leader said. He
 expressed regrets that Shevardnadze's visit had been very short and said
 the talks between them had been conducted at great speed.
        Shevardnadze's visit, his first to Tehran as president of independent
 Georgia, began early Tuesday. His previous visit was in February 1989,
 when he met the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
        Before leaving Tehran, he made a courtesy call on Khomeini's
 spiritual successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said his meeting with
 the late Iranian leader had endeared Shevardnadze to the Islamic
 Republic, Tehran radio said.
        There was speculation earlier that Iran would seek to buy from
 Tbilisi military aircraft which Georgia made for the former Soviet
 Union, but Tehran radio made no mention of a military deal between the
 visiting president and his Iranian counterpart.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Dissidents say Afghan offensive halted

        ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- The dissident Hezb-i-Islami Party said
 Wednesday its forces in Afghanistan captured an army base and blunted a
 major offensive by the army to capture hills outside Kabul used by
 rebels to rocket the city.
        Hezb-i-Islami fighters captured the Pulecharkhi base east of the city
 used by the Air Defense Rocket Regiment to defend the Kabul airport, the
 dissident-controlled Afghan News Agency said.
        The agency said the government used tanks and helicopter gunships to
 attack rebel positions in hills south, west and east of Kabul used to
 bombard the city with rockets.
        Radio Kabul said Hezb-i-Islami last week fired 200 rockets at Kabul
 from the hills.
        The news agency said heavy artillery fire continued in the eastern
 part of the city where dissidents forced the army to retreat and
 captured 300 government soldiers.
        Gen. Baba Jan, one of the senior military commanders of the former
 Communist regime retained by the mujahideen government of President
 Burhanuddin Rabbani, commanded the offensive, the agency said.
        The agency said dissidents killed scores of government troops and
 fighting continued.
        Hezb-i-Islami chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar planned to address the nation
 from his own television station south of Kabul to show he still
 controlled the area following ``the frenzied government attacks on his
 positions,'' the agency said.
        Afghan sources in Peshawar, Pakistan, said Hekmatyar and other
 dissident leaders were trying to form a new alliance against Rabbani.
        At least nine factions have been struggling for control of the
 country since mujahideen rebels in April overthrew a regime installed in
 1979 by the former Soviet Union.
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