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- <text id=91TT1239>
- <title>
- June 10, 1991: World Notes:Iran
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- June 10, 1991 Evil
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 43
- World Notes
- IRAN
- Love for Sale
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Iran's retreat from the anti-American orthodoxy of the late
- Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini accelerated last week. At the
- opening session of an international oil conference in Isfahan,
- President Hashemi Rafsanjani called for increased economic and
- political cooperation with the West and better relations with
- Iran's gulf neighbors. The overture was fueled largely by the
- need on the part of Tehran for foreign help to rebuild after its
- debilitating eight-year war with Iraq, which ended in 1988, as
- well as for long-term, reliable customers for its oil. Last year
- Iran launched a five-year campaign to attract $27 billion in
- foreign investment. So far, France, Italy, Germany and Austria,
- among others, have extended Iran more than $12 billion in
- credits. The U.S., however, continues to hold $11 billion in
- frozen Iranian assets and to impose a partial ban on the
- purchase of Iranian crude oil for sale in the U.S.
- </p>
- <p> The State Department once again insisted that to end its
- commercial and diplomatic isolation from the West, Iran must
- exert its influence to gain the release of the six American
- hostages thought to be held by pro-Iranian Shi`ite Muslims in
- Lebanon. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Maleki took an
- equally hard-nosed stance: although indicating that the ordeal
- of the hostages might end "soon," he repeated his country's
- long-standing demand that its funds in the U.S. be unfrozen.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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