Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – June 10, 1991

Until half past ten in the morning, I did the backlog of yesterday. Mr. Kurt Waldheim came to my office. First, we had private talks about peace in the Middle East. He believes that [George] Bush, [President of the United States of America] and [James] Baker, [Secretary of State of the United States of America], are willing to resolve the issue and return the occupied territories of Israel in 1967, but the supporters of Israel in America are against; For this reason, the probability of success of the Middle East peace movement is close to zero; But I said that I doubt that Bush and Baker would want such a thing.

He asked for permission to negotiate about helping to release the hostages in Lebanon. I agreed; Provided that he tells the media that Iran does not want to talk about this issue, because it is not related to Iran. We decided to negotiate in the evening meeting.

We arranged the official meeting of the negotiations. The talks were friendly and mostly aimed at developing relations. I appreciated the fact that he is under the pressure of the Zionists and was banned from entering America due to the pressure of the Zionists; They are not very happy with these statements going to the media, but they did.

Mr. [Aladdin] Boroujerdi returned from Türkiye. He gave the report of the negotiation with Mr. [Turgut] Özal, [President of Türkiye] and said, Özal said he does not want

cancel the economic blockade against Iraq, but expect the southerners to pay the damages to Türkiye. The implementation of Resolution 598 and the hostages and campaign of Iraq to the Shiites in the south have also been discussed.

We had an economic council in the evening. At night, I went to the guest house in Saadabad to have dinner with the Austrian guests privately and to have private negotiations. We sat by the pool. The good atmosphere of Saadabad and the beautiful view of the palace had impressed them; They said that there is no such place in Austria.

Dr. Velayati, Engineer [Mohammed Reza] Nematzadeh and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria were also there. Most of the talks were about the future of the Eastern Bloc. [Mr. Kurt Waldheim] believes that they will break up, especially the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and they imagine that the problems of the breakup of Yugoslavia will overtake them, and they are desperate to achieve anything. They do not rule out the possibility of the reunification of Hungary and Austria. They are not worried about the reunification of the two Germanys and they want to join the European Economic Community.

We had dinner together and after dinner, we talked more privately about the plan to help release the hostages. The usual content was repeated; We said that it might be possible to somehow trade them with Lebanese prisoners in Israel. I arrived home after twelve o'clock at night. Chastity was also a guest.