Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – July 19, 2003

In the meeting of the Expediency Discernment Council, three other clauses of the general policies for strengthening investment were approved. Mr. Majid Ansari, a representative of Tehran and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, said that it seems the NPT, which was signed during the previous regime, had a duration of 25 years, after which it should have been ratified again by the parliament, but Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati, the then Foreign Minister, signed it without referring it to the parliament, which is not legal. He consulted on raising this issue from the parliament's podium to put pressure on the IAEA. I said that in the special committee meeting, he could raise the same issue for consultation.

In a meeting with Mr. Abbas Vaez Tabasi, Ahmad Jannati, Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, Ghorbanali Dori Najafabadi, and Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, we discussed issues related to Iraq, the death of Zahra Kazemi, elections, problems of the judiciary, and the IAEA.

In the evening, Mr. Mohammad Reza Shafiei, a former member of parliament from Fouman, came. He complained about Mr. Zeyn al-Abidin Ghorbani, the Friday prayer leader of Rasht, and sought help with his problems.

The cabinet of Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, has been thrown into crisis due to the suspicious death of David Kelly, a weapons inspector. This has overshadowed the issue of Zahra Kazemi's death, which was a major news story. London police have said his death was due to a cut to his wrist, and Blair's opponents have demanded that he immediately cut short his trip to the Far East and return to London to answer questions. The leader of the Conservative Party and the British media have launched sharp attacks on Blair, and a strike by British Airways employees and a helicopter crash in southern London, which killed three people, have added to the crisis. The value of the pound has also fallen.

In Iraq, attacks by resistance forces against the occupiers have intensified, with several killed and wounded in several cities. Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, who had gone to Iraq to assess the situation, described it as very difficult and said that the U.S. had not anticipated such a situation and had no plan to get out of it.

Previously, a group of U.S. Congress representatives who had visited Iraq, after several days of investigation, reported that the situation is critical and that if the problems are not resolved within three months, they will no longer be solvable. Muqtada al-Sadr has also opposed the Governing Council and announced the formation of an army and has begun registration in Baghdad, which appears to be a hasty move.

In Afghanistan, three American soldiers were wounded in an explosion. Yesterday, eight Afghan soldiers were also killed.