Ex-Khatemi Adviser Is Freed From Iranian Jail
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — As President Khatemi prepares for a tour of America that will find him at Harvard next week and in an audience with President Carter, one of the former Iranian leader’s ex-advisers has been released after four months in prison.
Iranian news agencies reported yesterday that Ramin Jahanbegloo was being released, one day after the State Department decided to issue Mr. Khatemi a visa to visit America, where he is scheduled to speak at the United Nations.
A State Department spokesman said he did not know of any connection between Mr. Jahanbegloo’s release and Mr. Khatemi’s visa. Nonetheless, the two men have a history: Mr. Jahanbegloo is widely credited with coming up with the “dialogue of civilizations,” the theme of Mr. Khatemi’s 2000 address to the U.N.General Assembly. The address so impressed President Clinton’s State Department that back-channel diplomatic contacts began soon afterward.
“We are very pleased by today’s release of Iranian intellectual Ramin Jahanbegloo, who was unjustly imprisoned for four months without formal charges,” the State Department spokesman said.
Mr. Jahanbegloo, who also holds Canadian citizenship, was accused by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence of planning to foment a revolution on behalf of America. In 2004 he was a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, whose work, which is disclosed publicly, has been widely tolerated in totalitarian and authoritarian states.
The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mr. Khatemi yesterday as saying he was satisfied with his visit to Japan, where he met with Prime Minister Koizumi and made the case that his country, the world’s third-largest exporter of petroleum, seeks to enrich uranium only for to make energy. He also said he would not visit America if border officials took his fingerprints, a procedure almost all other Iranians who wish to come to America must undergo.
Last week, Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California, wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice recommending that Mr. Khatemi be interrogated and fingerprinted if he receives a visa.
