Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – May 12, 1990

I got fever and chills in the middle of the night. In the morning, I took painkillers with breakfast. I went to my office. [Mr. Aghazadeh], the oil minister came. He gave a report on the status of oil sales, which is good. He gave news of the Japanese proposal for [Southern] Pars gas and the memorandum of understanding with the [oil company] Total of France, to collect gas from the oil fields in the north of the Persian Gulf, and negotiations with several companies to collect gas from the Salman field and [Jazeera] Siri; It was decided to pre-sell 500 million dollars of oil for emergency expenses.

[Mr. Yusuf bin Alawi], the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Oman came and brought the message of Sultan Qaboos. He said about Saudi Arabia's agreement to perform the ceremony of acquittal of polytheists and accepting 60,000 pilgrims and announced Saddam's message that Oman should be the place to negotiate with us. I told him to tell the Amir of Kuwait on my behalf, not to be strict about the trial of Mr. [Syed Mohammad Baqer] Mohri, [Imam of the Shia Congregation of Kuwait]. He asked about the hostages; I said that we have taken the possible measures, it is America's turn.

To rest due to boredom, I canceled two more appointments. I ate soup at noon. In the evening, I spoke on the phone with Ayatollah Khamenei who was in Bushehr about the topics of the negotiations with Bin Alawi. The Supreme National Security Council had a meeting. We discussed the issues of Hajj and negotiations with Saddam. It was decided to accept 60,000 pilgrims with a meeting and a delegation will go to Saudi Arabia to finalize the issue and make preparations.

Regarding the negotiation with Iraq, after listening to the report of Mr. [Syros] Nasseri, [Iran's representative at the European headquarters of the United Nations], regarding the negotiation with Barzan [Tikriti], the [half] brother of Saddam, it was agreed that the negotiations would be held in Geneva and Naseri and Barzan would talk, and the focus of our conversation would be the implementation of resolution [598] and to negotiate with [Mr. Xavier Perez Decoyar] the secretary general [of the United Nations] so that the process of the resolution does not slow down.

I came home at night. His parents were also there. Mahdi had returned from Kish. He said that the central bank has not yet arrived and the electricity situation is not good.