Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – October 11, 1998

As usual on most days, after morning prayer and Quran work and listening to Iranian news and BBC and [Voice of] America radios, I went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast; heating milk, bringing bread and tea and setting the table. I started eating breakfast. Efat arrived late as usual and complained that I had breakfast early. We had rain last night.

The managers and experts of the secretariat of the [Expediency Detection] Assembly came. Mr. [Mohsen] Rezaei, [Secretary of the Assembly] reported and I also spoke and explained the way of working in drafting general policies and gave explanations about the country's political and economic problems and advised cooperation and avoiding differences and conflicts.

Mr. Rezaei came and gave a report about the encounter with the Taliban at the border. He said that a team of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had penetrated the territory of Afghanistan for identification purposes, while returning from one of the military centers of the Taliban, they were shot at, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops stationed at the border opened fire on that center and they responded, and then a group of Taliban approached the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and requested that such actions not be repeated.

Mr. [Mohammed] Shariatmadari, Minister of Commerce, came. He gave a report on the actions of the ministry and expressed concern about the economic and political situation and said that they are having problems buying basic goods. He asked me to warn Mr. Noorbakhsh, [CEO of Central Bank], to cooperate in opening LCs [letters of credit]. He said, Mr. Khatami does not pay attention to the importance of the issue and a crisis may arise. He said that foreigners express doubts about the possibility of the continuation of Mr. Khatami's government and sometimes predict a few months of life.

Mr. [Javad] Maqsoudi came from the Friday prayer headquarters and asked me to perform the 1,000th Friday prayer and expressed concern about the high cost, unemployment, and disputes. In the evening, I married the sister of Mr. [Alireza] Dehghan, one of my guards.

I was the guest of the leader. They are upset and said that with the announcement of the withdrawal of some candidates, there will be disruption in the elections. It has been reported that Mr. [Mohammed Reza] Tausli and [Syed Mohammad Mousavi] Bojnordi and some other people also want to withdraw. They asked me to try to heat up the election and send a message to some authorities. I asked them to greet Mr. [Mohammed Taghi] Philosopher. Information was given on the issue of conflict on the border of Afghanistan. They said, the IRGC does not mind getting involved. It was decided that next Friday, in order to encourage the people to participate in the elections, they will offer Friday prayers. They said that the statement of the clerical assembly [Mubarez] has bad themes and Mr. [Syed Jalaluddin] Taheri Esfahani has done a bad thing by announcing his withdrawal. They do not consider the crisis of Türkiye and Syria to be serious and consider Türkiye's bluffs as a result of Türkiye's bad internal conditions.