Embassy officials told the publication the closure was due to economic problems, and about 20 percent of Iran's embassies, including some in Europe, will shut down for the same reason. Last November Iranian newspapers reported that, for economic reasons, embassies in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Brunei, and Nicaragua, as well as consulates in Munich and Shanghai, will close. This, and the fact that the speech was not rebroadcast nor was it mentioned in news reports the next day, showed that IRIB has an anti-Khatami bias, the newspaper claimed. President Khatami's trip to Italy and the Vatican was apparently considered a success by most Iranian political leaders.
Most foreign observers consider it one, too.
And new invitations from Portugal and Azerbaijan have been announced. Iranian political observers are using the Italian trip as a model for future trips, particularly the one to France planned for April. Iran undoubtedly hopes to make a financial gain from the French trip, as it apparently did from the Italian one. Among the projects will be development of the Bandar Abbas Power Plant, weekly Alitalia flights, the upgrade of Isfahan's Mobarak Steel Complex, and a road-building project. There were aspects of the Italian trip which upset some Iranians.