Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 19, 1998

I stayed at home. Many bulletins came from the office; I was browsing. Most of the time was spent studying contemporary history, the history of world churches and the atlas of the history of the Islamic world, especially the Arabian Peninsula. More to match the historical and geographical observations of the Arabian trip with the writings of history and geography.

Mr. [Kamal] Kharazi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave a report on his trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar by phone and said that your good deeds were mentioned everywhere, and your trip and talks created a suitable environment for the development of cooperation, and using this environment, Mr. Saud al-Faisal, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, is scheduled to come to Iran after Hajj to sign the text of the proposed agreement on the cooperation of the Joint Commission. I brought this proposal from Saudi Arabia and gave it to the government. Also, the problem of perfect prayer has been solved; Earlier, Madinah authorities had announced that this year, it will not be recited together with others. I told them not to interfere and now they have responded. It seems that it was the express order of Amir Abdullah [Crown of Saudi Arabia] and it was also decided that Mr. Huzaifi, the prayer leader of the Medina mosque, who had insulted the Shia during my trip, will be prohibited from performing congregational prayers during Hajj.

The same evening, Mr. [Mohammed Reza] Nouri [Shahrudi, Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia] spoke by phone from Riyadh and gave the same content with more explanations; With the difference that Mr. Noori considers these to be the results of his own negotiations and Mr. Kharazi documents them to his own negotiations, but both of them call it the result of the trip.

Asr Mohsen came. The ox brought a bigger chest. My current fund is not enough for documents and especially annual diaries; The new box is also very big and it is difficult to transport it. We talked about the political and economic situation and the problems caused by the differences and the cheapening of the oil price and the possible solutions studied by the government, which Mr. Dr. [Mohammed Ali] Najafi, [Head of the Program and Budget Organization] said in his meeting yesterday; such as 1- Couponing gasoline and increasing the price of free gasoline at the level of international prices; They think that about 500 billion tomans will be obtained from this passage. 2- Borrowing from the central bank, which needs the approval of the parliament. 3- Borrowing currency from abroad.

It is unlikely that the leadership will agree to this. He said that the Americans have said that they will agree to this negotiation if all issues are on the agenda. Mr. Najafi also thinks it is unlikely that they will accept leadership. He complained that when he told them that to solve the problem of employment, we have to attract capital, he was met with a cold attitude and they said with surprise: "Foreign capital"?!!