Administration Welcomes ‘Encouraging’ Sign
By Ann Devroy
Washington Post StalfWriter
Amid
increasing
signs
of
significant
changes inside Iran, and hints of secret di-
plomacy, the Bush administration yesterday
welcomed “encouraging” signals from Teh-
ran on the fate of the American hostages.
In Tehran, President Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani told journalists that Iran wanted to
solve the
hostage problem. “My feeling
is
that the issue of the hostages is moving to-
wards a solution/
1 he said at a news confer-
ence after the return of Mahmoud Hashemi,
his brother, from visits to Syria and Lebanon
where he met with officials and Shiite Mos-
lem leaders.
.
,
U.S. government and outside experts on
Iran
said
that
Rafsanjani,
after
several
months in office marked by a power strug-
gle with extremists who oppose his plans to
improve
relations with
the West,
is now
consolidating
his
control. That
consolida-
tion, they said, was the most positive sign
that five years of Western efforts to free 18
hostages might reach fruition.
Officials yesterday cited as a significant
sign the arrival of a special mission from the
World Bank in Tehran to review an Iranian
request for economic assistance. The ne-
gotiations followed
a two-month
battle
in
the Iranian parliament, which approved a
Rafsanjani plan to borrow about $27 billion
from foreign countries despite
initial oppo-
sition from hard-liners. The money would
finance an
ambitious
five-year
project
to
rebuild Iran's economy and
infrastructure,
devastated by the war with Iraq.
White House press secretary Marlin Fitz-
water said the administration was “encour-
aged by the comments” of Rafsanjani, The
remarks,
Fitzwater
added,
“are
certainly
more hopeful than we have heard
in
the
more distant past.”
...
A senior administration official described
the attitude of officials at the White House
as “one
of we wait and
sit and read
tea
leaves and read cables and feel optimistic,
but many of us have been through this be-
fore. We are more optimistic, yes, but there
is no sign of imminent release” of the hos-
tages.
Another
senior
official
said:
We
think nothing is going to happen immediate-
ly. But I think only three people know what
ns from Iran on nosiagtw
really
is happening—the
president,
[Sec-
retary of State James A.] Baker and [nation-
al security adviser] Brent Scowcroft."
Gary Sick, who handled Iranian matters on
President Jimmy Carter's National Security
Council staff and now observes Iran from Co-
; lumbia University, said yesterday: “I am as
J optimistic as I have ever been. I think this is
f it.
I really do .... I see this [release of the
hostages] as the next step. He
[Rafsanjani]
needs
if and he is doing this not because he
cares about the hostages but simply to rein-
force his position domestically.”
Sick
interpreted
Rafsanjani’s decision
to
publicly predict a solution to the hostage cri-
sis as a sign of his growing control of the gov-
ernment. But like several administration of-
Approved For Release 2000/08/08
-
pressed hope for an early release of
the hostages, according to the
of-
ficial
Iranian news agency.
In the
past, Mussawi spoke out strongly
against concessions to the West and
unconditional
release
of
the
hos-
tages.
Hezbollah's
spiritual
guide,
Sheik Mohammed Hussein
Fadlal-
lah, last week voiced optimism and
called for an end to the hostage Cri-
spin his Friday sermon.
Two
Iranian government envoys
went to Damascus and Beirut in an
unannounced
visit two days ago to
consult with Syrian officials and Shi-
ite
clerics.
Sources
in
Beirut
said
Mahmoud Hashemi, director of the
Middle East department at the Iran-
ian Foreign Ministry, and Mahmoud
Akhtari, Iran's ambassador to Syria,
traveled to Beirut from Syria.
Sources in Washington said Syr-
ian Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa
was
planning
to
visit
the
Iranian
capital in the next two days.
The
mission
from
the
World
Bank is the second to Tehran in the
past three months. The bank had
cut off loans to Iran after the 1979
explosion in
oil prices raised Iran s
income beyond the ceiling for bank
assistance.
The
move
coincided
with the seizure of U.S. hostages.
Iran, again eligible for assistance,
requested
it in September, prompt-
ing
the
visits by
the World Bank
teams. While the United States has
no direct control over World Bank
loans, its voting rights and pressure
on allies could thwart an Iranian ef-
CIA-RDP96-00789R00040102000&*7to obtain the credits. A White
House
official
said
the
United
States would oppose such funding,
ficials, Sick cautioned, “Things can always go
wrong, especially in Lebanon.”
In Lebanon yesterday, a group calling it-
self the Revolutionary Justice Organization
said
it had no intention
of releasing
’ two
American
hostages
it
has
been
holding.
They are Joseph Cicippio of Pennsylvania
and Edward Austin Tracy of VermonCan
author. There are six other AmericanJmjs-
tages among the 18 from the West.
.
The new optimism was triggered by a se-
ries of editorials in Iran's Tehran Times over
the past 10 days calling for the first time for
an “unconditional” release of foreign captives
held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
In addition to the editorials, a senior Hez-
bollah
official,
Hussein
Mussawi,
has
1 ex-
See HOSTAGES, A32, CoL I