Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – January 8, 1992

It snowed well last night. Yesterday, it rained until noon in Tehran. [Mr. Kurkmaz Haktanir, Jiberi Oswalt and Omar Diabeh], the ambassadors of Türkiye, Czechoslovakia and Senegal came to present credentials. I talked with each of them according to their specific issues.

The Czechoslovak ambassador delivered his speech in Persian; He has already studied Persian language and literature in Tehran. He said that after the removal of Marxism, they have not been able to solve their problems so far and the production has dropped by fifteen percent and still about thirty percent of the votes are from the Communist Party and they are disrupting the work. It seems that these problems exist in all the communist countries that have recently been freed from Marxism, and it is natural for the communists to use these problems everywhere and not let the new governments dominate the situation and gradually discourage the public opinion towards the new systems. Westerners, who are not forgiving and greedy for help, will not help effectively.

Mr. Seyyed Muhammad Baqir Hakim, [Speaker of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq] came. Reported his trip to Syria. There, Iraqi opponents have agreed on the type of government to replace Saddam and have given about a third of the members to the Shiites and the rest to the Kurds and nationalists, etc. In order to negotiate with Saudi Arabia to get their agreement. Until now, like America, they have counted on a military coup and may have come to the conclusion that it is not a practical way. He made statements about the implementation tactics to reach the goal and asked for financial assistance.

Mr. [Hadi] Nejadhosseiniyan, [Minister of Heavy Industries] came. gave a report on the state of production of cars; is satisfied They are produced with competitive or floating currency. [Mr. Gholamreza Aghazadeh], the oil minister, came and reported on his trip to Baku; They have had good agreements with Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Ukrainians want to buy gas and oil from Iran; At the moment, they are taking from Russia, and because they are likely to have problems with the Soviet Union in the future due to differences, they are looking for an alternative. It seems that the Americans have offered them to pipe gas from Qatar to there, but with the proposal of Azerbaijan, they have preferred Iran.

In the first stage, next year, nine billion cubic meters of gas that Azerbaijan takes from Turkmenistan will be given to Ukraine, and instead, Azerbaijan will take it from us, so that it can be prepared for the transfer of 75 billion meters of gas and 45 million tons of oil per year in three pipeline stages. If these suggestions are implemented, it is very important and useful and it is reasonable to take action.

In the evening, I did not attend the government meeting. At night, the fighting clerical society had a meeting in my office. A decision was made regarding the elections in Tehran. Mr. [Ali] Falahian came for information affairs and reported. I stayed in my office at night. I did things late. Today, the CNN TV channel showed the scene of [George] Bush fainting at a party meeting in Tokyo, which was interesting; They said that the danger has been removed.