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Khatami visits economic giant Germany |
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July 9, 2000
TEHRAN (AP) - Iran expects Germany to contain opposition to President Mohammad Khatami's visit, state-run radio said Saturday, a day after Iranian opposition activists protested the trip by occupying part of the German consulate in Amsterdam. Iran expects Germany to "take the necessary measures" to deal with any opposition groups planning protests against Khatami's visit to Germany, which begins Monday, the radio said without providing further details. Khatami's visit, scheduled to end Wednesday, would be the first visit by an Iranian leader to Germany since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The Iranian people expect assurances that "the enemies of the Iranian nation in Germany, who have been trying for years to damage the two countries' relations, do not succeed in achieving their wicked objectives," the radio said. On Friday, 10 unarmed Iranians moved into the German consulate in Amsterdam demanding that Khatami's visit be called off. They distributed statements as they left saying they were protesting "two decades of repression" in Iran. There have been several demonstrations against the visit inside Germany as well, and security officials have said they were increasing border controls after receiving "serious tips" that Iranian opposition groups were planning disturbances. Khatami, a moderate cleric elected president in 1997, is seeking to revive contacts with Western Europe that could lead to increasing foreign investment in Iran and he is trying to promote more democratic reforms at home. His hard-line rivals have closed 19 publications, most of them pro-reform newspapers and magazines, since April, and arrested several pro-democracy journalists and activists. Last year, Khatami visited Italy and France. Germany is Iran's leading Western trade partner, but the two nations have had their differences in recent years. Relations were frozen after a German court ruled in 1997 that the 1992 shooting deaths of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin had been ordered at the highest levels in Tehran. The case of Helmut Hofer, a German businessman twice sentenced to death in Iran for a relationship with a 26-year-old Iranian medical student, further strained ties. Eventually, he was acquitted and released from prison in January. |