Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – February 16, 1999

In the morning, I went to Sharif University from home to open the Pathology Conference of a Revolution. A large number of students were gathered. After the report and welcome by Dr. Sohrab Pour, [President of Sharif University of Technology] and Dr. [Gholam Ali] Haddad Adel, [Secretary of the conference], I talked about the factors of victory and the goals and conditions of the revolution and the possibility of negative effects of not paying attention to those factors. Dr. [Mustafa] Moin, [Minister of Culture and Higher Education] came. He complains about the lack of foreign currency and Riyal credits for higher education and appealed and said about the need to concentrate more research credits in universities.

Mr. Masih Mohajeri, [social adviser to the president and managing director of the Islamic newspaper] came in the afternoon. He criticized the government's misbehavior regarding the recent murders and the leadership office's inaction against these misbehavior, and he consulted the president's advisor to resign, which I opposed. He followed up for an interview with the newspaper. Mr. [Abd al-Majid] Maadikhah, [President of the Islamic Revolution History Foundation] came. He reported on the follow-up of the foundation building and the follow-up of the cooperation program with Azad University.

In the news, the arrest of [Abdullah] Ocalan, [leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party of Türkiye, PKK] and his extradition to Türkiye is important. It seems that he was arrested while leaving the Greek Embassy in Kenya for a meeting. Kurds supporting him have attacked several Greek embassies in Europe today; It is an important victory for Türkiye. The possibility of killing Osama bin Laden, [the leader of the al-Qaeda group] has also been raised today.

The simultaneous explosion of six bombs in Tashkent has a wide global impact. Mr. [Islam] Karimov, [President of Uzbekistan], has introduced it as a coup and an attempt on his life; Because a bomb exploded near the place of the formation of the government board in which he also participated, and the government propaganda attributed it to religious opponents and fundamentalists.

The government of Iraq has threatened Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kuwait that if American planes use their bases against Iraq, it will attack them, and Saudi [Arabian] newspapers have said that the snake's head should be cut off in Iraq.