No Negotiations With U.S., Iran Leader Declares

Iran’s prime minister said today that there is no possibility of negotiations with Washington, which Tehran says sent former National Security adviser Robert C. McFarlane and four other Americans on a futile mission to mend relations.

The Iranian parliament Speaker, Hashemi Rafsanjani, indicated Tuesday that Iran might use its influence to help free American hostages held in Lebanon if the United States sends badly needed weapons and spare parts to Iran. (Story on Page 14.)

Published reports in the Middle East said negotiations between Iran and the United States led to the release Sunday of one American hostage, David P. Jacobsen, by Islamic Jihad, a pro-Iranian group that holds two other Americans.

‘The Wolf and the Lamb’

But Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi was quoted today by Tehran radio as saying:

“There isn’t any possibility of any kind of negotiations between us and America. The relations with America, because of its crimes against the Islamic revolution, is one as between the wolf and the lamb.”

Moussavi repeated Rafsanjani’s claim that McFarlane led a peace mission to Iran, but like Rafsanjani, did not say when the trip was made. Published reports have said it was in September.

“Mr. Rafsanjani in his speech referred to one of the Americans who introduced himself as McFarlane and his papers proved that, and a Xerox of their passports exists,” Moussavi said.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency today quoted Rafsanjani as saying in a speech Tuesday, “If you want us to help you, provided like others you do not interfere with our job, we will help--if our friends in Lebanon accept.”

Weapons and Spare Parts

The price for the help, he said, is delivery of weapons and spare parts for Iran, locked in a 6-year-old war with neighboring Iraq.

He later said Iran’s conditions for helping free the hostages are U.S. and French agreement to return Iranian assets seized after the 1979 revolution.