Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – December 18, 1994

At half past seven, I went to my office as usual. By half past nine in the morning, the work was done. Mr. [Syed Mohammad] Gharehi, [Minister of Post, Telegraph and Telephone] came. He gave a report on the process of buying satellites and developing telephones and mobile phones and tendering five million telephone switches in the second five-year plan and complained about the lack of cooperation of the central bank.

Mr. [Gholamreza] Shafii, [Cooperation Minister] came. He complained about not paying enough attention to the cooperatives and asked for more reinforcement or to accept my resignation, which I accepted. In the meeting of the market regulation headquarters, we had a review of the success of the plan to fight against high prices and the plan to purchase goods included in the plan, both of which are successful. We also discussed about removing the obstacles in the registration of the new company of chain stores, and it was decided that it will be registered this week and that the participation bills will be distributed next week.

In the evening, Dr. Velayati [Minister of Foreign Affairs] came. The report of the recent summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Morocco and the effective support of Sultan Hassan, [King of Morocco], for the approval of holding the next conference in Tehran, despite Pakistan's great efforts to determine Islamabad and also the signing of an agreement with the countries of Yemen, Oman and Qatar for quadrilateral cooperation in a confidential manner, which is an important task. He quoted from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Oman that the British were against this cooperation at first, but recently accepted it.

We had several resolutions in the meeting of the government board. It was decided to announce the final approval of the plan to provide housing for government employees. I was a guest of the leader at dinner. Regarding Khark Island facilities and the status of Abu Musa and Do Tonb islands and the status of Commander Nadaja and the issues of authority and Ali Tehrani's recent statements against Ayatollah Khamenei and the letter of several members of the Qom teachers' community regarding authority to Mr. Khamenei by Mr. [Abul Qasim] Khazali and Mr. Khazali's own statements and the current issues of the country and the issue of Chechnya and the Russian attack on them, we negotiated and made decisions in some cases.