BRIEF  ON  IRAN
No. 190
Thursday, June 15, 1995


Representative Office of
The National Council of Resistance of Iran
3421 M Street NW #1032
Washington, DC 20007


Germany Bowed to Economic Threats By Iran, Associated Press,
June 14

        An Iranian resistance group whose leader has been barred
from entering Germany contended Wednesday that Germany
bowed to economic threats from Tehran.
        A day earlier, when Germany decided not to let resistance
leader Maryam Rajavi address a rally in Dortmund, it insisted it
was not caving in to demands from Iran.
        But Mohammad Mohaddessin, a spokesman for Mrs. Rajavi's
Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, said Iran had
threatened to stop paying interest on its debts to Germany and to
cancel German business contracts.
        "The Iran regime is turning Germany into its hostage,"  said
Mohaddessin...
        Mohaddessin said informers within Iran say an Iranian
intelligence official named Amir Hossein Taghavi met with the
German Foreign Ministry to seek a ban on Mrs. Rajavi, a charge
Germany denies.
        In 1993, covert meetings between Chancellor Helmut Kohl's
intelligence adviser, Bernd Schmidbauer, and the chief of Iranian
intelligence angered the United States and Britain.


Bonn Caved in to Blackmail, Reuters, June 14

        Iranian dissidents accused Germany on Wednesday of
bowing to Iranian blackmail by banning a resistance leader from
attending a rally designed to whip up international opposition to
the Tehran government...
        Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign policy spokesman for the
Paris-based Iranian National Resistance Council, told a news
conference that Bonn had actually banned Rajavi in response to
high-level pressure from Tehran, with which it has good ties.
        "There was no reason to ban Mrs. Rajavi's entry other than
pressure exerted by the Iranian mullah regime and the German
government's giving in to these blackmail efforts,"  he said.
        Citing unnamed Iranian government and intelligence
sources he... suggested Tehran had hinted at terrorist attacks if
Bonn did not bend.  "The economic threats are always official and
the terrorist threats are always unofficial,"  he said.
        Mohaddessin said Bonn had changed its mind at the last
minute. Federal and state officials had known since May that
Rajavi was coming and pledged to provide security, he said...


Germany Refuses Iranian Dissident Entry, United Press
International, June 14

        The Iranian Council of National Resistance (NCR) Wednesday
accused Germany of bowing to blackmail by the   "terrorist
religious dictatorship ruling Iran"  by denying Iranian dissident
Maryam Radjavi permission to enter the country...
         The NCR elected Radjavi, a 43-year-old mother of one, as
president- in-exile less than two years ago. She lives in France.


European MPs Demand Sanctions Against Iran, Reuters, June 13

        Members of parliament from several West European
countries on Tuesday stepped up pressure on their governments
to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran because of its
human rights record.
        Some 250 members of Britain's House of Commons and 175
members of the upper House of Lords have signed a statement on
Iran claiming that in 16 years, the regime has executed 100,000
people and imprisoned and tortured many more.
        They called for  "military, economic, commercial, political
and economic sanctions"  and for support for the National Council
of Resistance (NCR), the main opposition movement.
        NCR first secretary Mohsen Rezaee told the news conference
that a total of 1,700 MPs in democratic countries had supported
initiatives for an embargo against Tehran.
        "The policy of appeasement and compromise towards this
illegitimate regime has no place in public opinion around the
world,"  he said.


Iran's Revolutionary Guards Test Power, United Press
International, June 14

        Iran is staging its first  "coordinated maneuvers"  since the
end of an eight-year war with Iraq in 1988 to send clear
messages to friends and foes about its capabilities, the Islamic
Republic News Agency said Wednesday.
        In a dispatch monitored in London, the agency quoted
commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, a
wing of the Iranian armed forces of more than 500,000 men.
        "Through this maneuver we will convey a clear message to
enemies of our ability to defend the liberty and independence of
Iran,"  Rezaii said...