US prepares to promote democracy in Iran

WASHINGTON - The United States has earmarked US$3m ($4.16m) to promote democracy in Iran - a tiny sum but one that has been denounced by Teheran as impermissible meddling in its internal affairs.

The money has already been appropriated by Congress, and the State Department last week announced that it was inviting educational and humanitarian groups, as well as non-government organisations and individuals inside Iran, to submit proposals "to support the advancement of democracy and human rights".

Iran and the US have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students took over the US embassy in Teheran.

The latest move however is a natural follow-up to last year's Greater Middle East initiative that seeks to further free speech and democracy across the region, and President Bush's pledge to Iranians in his second inaugural address on January 20, that, "As you stand for your liberty, America stands with you."

Nevertheless, it breaks with a US undertaking, given as part of the 1981 Algiers accord that secured the release of 52 American hostages, that Washington would not intervene, directly or indirectly, in Iran's internal affairs.

To an extent that pledge has already been circumvented, by the US$15m the US spends on Persian language radio and television broadcasts into Iran.

But the US$3m would go further, by financing efforts mounted inside the country - and as such was angrily denounced by Iran's envoy to the United Nations.

The plan was "a clear violation" of the Algiers agreement," Mohammad Javad Zarif said, hinting that his government might take the matter to an international court.

More likely, perhaps, the clerical regime in Teheran will simply bar Iranians from receiving money.

The offer from Washington comes at a delicate moment in Iranian politics, barely two months before the June 17 election of a new President to replace the outgoing Mohammed Khatami, who has disappointed reformers by failing to stand up to the religious conservatives who really run the country.

More than 500 Iranian intellectuals have signed a petition demanding a change in the constitution.

The plan can only exacerbate the current tensions between Washington and Teheran, over the latter's support for militant anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah, and over Iran's suspected programme to develop a nuclear weapon.

It may also founder on history - the US-backed coup of 1953 to overthrow the democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, resented to this day by many Iranians.

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