Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – July 22, 1996

The Minister of [Culture and] [Islamic] Guidance and the central and provincial groups came to promote the government week. Mr. Mirslim reported and I also talked about the necessity and importance of advertising and informing the people about the progress of the country and the services of the revolution and gave examples from the Hamadan trip. Mr. Sardar [Ahmed] Vahid and Sardar Fakheri came and asked for permission and credit to participate in the reconstruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [Mr. Irakli Magari Shvili], Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia came. The negotiations were friendly and in the development of cooperation. They want to be in ECO [Economic Cooperation Organization] as an observer and participate in multilateral cooperation programs.

In the evening, I gave a radio and television interview about the trip to Hamadan for about an hour. In the meeting of the government board, we had several resolutions. At night, Ayatollah Khamenei was my guest. We talked a bit about our situation. He was in Mashhad for more than a month and we had not seen each other. We talked about the explosion [of the American military base in Al-Khobar] in Saudi Arabia and the crash of an American plane in the sea, which killed about 250 people, and the mischievous statements that somehow accuse us and ways to remedy these propaganda. We discussed about Imam Juma of Karaj, who was deposed, and the issue of relations with Egypt, where he is against the establishment of official political relations, and the current issues of the country. I slept the night in my office.