Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 5, 1997

It snowed a little at night in Tehran. We went to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for the [opening] ceremony of the seminar on supporting children and mothers. Dr. Akbari and Dr. Marandi, from the Ministry of Health, Education, Jihad, Energy and Agriculture, reported on their actions in implementing this resolution. The representative of the United Nations - UNESCO - also spoke about the leadership of Iran and the unique achievements of our country at the world level. I also spoke about the successes and explained that the cause of these successes is the implementation of development programs, and I said that third world countries can never achieve these goals and the countries that cause this poverty and backwardness are also to blame. Providing proper health and nutrition and immunization has huge costs. Due to the length of the meeting, I fell behind the work schedule of the office.

In my office, I had a meeting with [Mr. J. Hatsakou Yibla], the Prime Minister of Chad. brought the letter of the Muslim president of Chad; Although he himself is a Christian. They want help to solve the problems of this year's drought and also to strengthen their agriculture and animal husbandry and the uniforms of the military forces. It was decided to send a delegation to examine the needs and help. [Mr. Akbar Turkan], the Minister of Roads and Transportation and the directors of the Veterans Foundation, came to solve the problem of land acquisition, to finance the Tehran-North highway.

In the evening, Mr. [Ali Mohammad and Jalil] two evangelists, [Minister of the Interior and Head of the Deprived Regions Office] came and reported on the situation of the earthquake victims. I was supposed to go to Ardabil today; We gave up because of unfavorable weather conditions. In the evening, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution had a meeting with several resolutions. Some time was wasted because of the non-expert suggestions of new members. After the meeting, Dr. [Mustafa] Moin demanded to speed up the implementation of the second phase of the election [the mid-term assembly in the constituency] of Isfahan. Dr. [Ali] Larijani followed up to persuade Dr. [Hasan] Rouhani and Dr. [Hasan] Habibi to participate in the [presidential] elections.