Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi - March 11, 2003

• Continuation of the review of the notes of the 2003 budget bill and the resolution of the dispute between the parliament and the Guardian Council and its margins, according to Hashemi
  Attending the mourning of Ayatollah Khamenei's office and listening to Seyyed Mohammad Khatami's report on Jacques Chirac's phone call
  Hashemi's account of the reformists' reaction to his Friday sermons
  Full text of the diary:
• At the Expediency Council's meeting, we approved several other clauses of the budget [2003] on attracting foreign capital, which had been rejected by the Guardian Council, with amendments, including the amendments to convert $2.3 billion from foreign sources to absorb it from domestic sources in rials.

In the end, there was a dispute between the parliamentarians and the Guardian Council regarding the budget of the Guardian Council, and the rest of the work was postponed to the next session. During the meeting, the mourning delegation of the Presidential Institution came. I went and thanked them, but since I was supposed to be in the meeting, I did not speak against their expectations.

I worked in my office until night and went to the Leader's shrine at night. Mr. Khatami [President] said that Mr. [Jacques] Chirac, the President of France, called and said that the United States was angry and determined to launch a military attack, even if the Security Council did not approve it, and France and its allies stood by their opposition. He wanted to know Iran's opinion about the war and its consequences and the refugees.

The people of Khordad are upset by my short remarks in the Friday prayers about the regression in people's participation in the elections after the 2nd of Khordad and the beginning of the blackening of the situation in the country and the revolution, and they are trying for an answer, but they do not have a convincing answer.

The European Union has warned Turkey that if it does not accept the UN proposal for the unification of Cyprus, the Greek part of Cyprus will join the EU in 2004 and Turkey, as the occupier of part of European territory, will be barred from joining the EU.

The Serbian prime minister, who defeated [Radvan] Milošević and handed him over to the International Criminal Court, was assassinated today.

In a surprising move, Libya accepted responsibility for the explosion of a Pan American airliner over Lacurby and must pay about $2.7 billion in compensation. 
Sixteen judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were sworn in to begin their work.