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Iranian Kurdish exile groups condemn US
overtures
9.6.2006
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
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Rival Iranian opposition
groups in exile have condemned the Bush
administration’s conditional offer to begin
negotiations with the Islamic republic if it halts
its nuclear programme .
Mustafa Hijri, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party of Iran (KDPI) told the Financial Times that
he believed he had been given access to only
low-level US officials during his visit to
Washington because the administration did not want
to antagonise Iran.
“When they are eager to speak to the Iranian regime,
they don’t receive you at a high level,” he said.
Mr Hijri said he had only met members of parliament
in the UK and not the government for the same
reasons.
“It is a difficult time for us,” he said.
The offer of talks with Iran was a mistake, Mr Hijri
said, because the ruling clerics could not be
trusted and would only lie about their nuclear
programme and continue with clandestine activities. |
Mustafa Hejri, Secretary General of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party of Iran KDPI |
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran who
was ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution, has also
criticised the US offer. Speaking in Paris this week
after meeting French lawmakers, he said the Bush
administration was strengthening the hand of
hardliners in Tehran.
Mr Hijri, who is based in northern Iraq, leads one
of Iran’s oldest political parties. Last year the
KDPI formed an association with representatives of
other Iranian ethnic minority groups - including
Arabs, Azeris and Baluch but not Persian monarchists
- calling for a federal system within Iran that
would give autonomy to the regions.
Mr Hijri said the US and its European allies were
wrong to focus on the nuclear issue to the neglect
of human rights, lack of democracy, Iran’s support
for terrorist groups and its treatment of the
country’s diverse nationalities.
The Iranian government has accused the US and UK of
stirring up ethnic unrest among its minorities along
the border with Iraq.
FT com
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