Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – June 28, 2003

The Infrastructure Commission [Council for the Expediency of the Nizam] had a meeting for the general policies of the land.  The generalities of the human factor in interaction with nature and tools were approved.  Mr. Majeed Ansari, [Tehran representative and member of the assembly] said, second Khordadi newspapers have a coordinating staff which is led by Mr. Behzad Nabavi, [Vice Speaker of the Parliament] and they usually act in coordination on factional and political issues and even newspapers affiliated with non-participating [parties] follow them.  They did not say such things until now;  The reason may be their internal differences.

In the evening [Mr. Osama Hamdan], the deputy head of the political office [of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement] of Hamas came.  He gave detailed explanations, consulted about the reasons for the decision to accept the three-month suspension of military operations against Israel.  I also mentioned that Iran does not want to interfere in their affairs, and I made comments about America's problems in the region and their need for such an issue in the Middle East, as well as their lack of confidence in Israel.  It was agreed that I will give the official answer of the system after consultation.

Mr. Sardar [Qassem] Soleimani, [commander of IRGC Quds Force] came.  He said, America is getting desperate in Iraq.  Some have been involved with it, and wherever an officer is appointed who is not accepted by the people, the people force him to remove him, and the Badr Corps has now established 220 offices throughout Iraq.  Iraq's borders are open and thousands of people from Iraq's neighboring countries enter it every day without control, and the American military has also had problems with the Kurds, and they are gradually becoming disaffected.  In Iraq, one American soldier was killed and four people were wounded.

In the leader's office, the heads [of forces] had a meeting.  The leadership demanded that there be coordination between all forces on the fight against inflation and follow up on the issues of the recent riots.  Finally, based on the decision of the Supreme National Security Council, it was decided that the three powers should act in harmony.  Mr. Karroubi, [the speaker of the parliament] announced that four members of the parliament, [Mr. Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoyini, Reza Yousefian, Maitham Saeedi and Ms. Fatemeh Haqitjo], have protested the arrest of students in the parliament and told them not to expect support in case of problems.

At night, I went to the killing ground of the 7th of Tir martyrs in the former office of the Islamic Republic Party and gave a speech to the attendees.  There, I told engineer [Mehdi] Chamran, the head of the Tehran city council, that the municipality should participate in the construction of the slaughterhouse building.