Envoy Denies Iran Got U.S. Arms by Making Hostage Deal

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations acknowledged Wednesday that his nation has received shipments of U.S. arms, but he flatly denied that his government has agreed to trade American hostages for weapons vital to its war with Iraq.

In a New York press conference, Ambassador Said Rajaie-Khorassani dismissed as “purely coincidental” any link between arms deliveries and the release, so far, of three American hostages held in Lebanon by the pro-Iranian group Islamic Jihad.

“We did not have any deal, any arms deal or any other kind of deal with regard to release of the hostages with the United States or anybody else,” Rajaie-Khorassani said.

He added, however, that Iran has received recent shipments of American-made weapons and that it is “not quite clear” whether they were approved by the U.S. government or were arranged on the black market.

Ban on Arms Deliveries

And the ambassador implied that “the United States’ problem in Lebanon” would be eased if U.S. officials relaxed their ban on the delivery of arms and other goods purchased by Iran before the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 14 months.

Those U.S.-made arms already received by Iran are believed to have been delivered after former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane visited Tehran this year and last. When asked whether he believes that the United States is in fact reconsidering its Iran policy, Rajaie-Khorassani replied: “I think. Otherwise, why should Mr. McFarlane come to Tehran?”

The envoy’s comments were the first official Iranian remarks in more than a week on the reported arms-for-hostages trade, which has stirred an internal furor in Iran as well as a storm of protest within the United States.

Same Type of Criticism

His harsh criticism of the United States differed little from that issued last week by the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a lengthy speech to other legislators in Tehran.

But Rajaie-Khorassani also suggested that U.S.-Iranian relations, while “very bad,” could improve if the United States releases the seized shipments, reassesses its backing for the Christian-led government of Lebanon and “abandons its anti-Islamic attitude.”

He called reports of a White House tilt toward Iran “a very positive step, provided that it is with the understanding that the United States should change its policies basically, not only toward Iran.”

The White House and the State Department had no comment on the ambassador’s remarks. But Joseph Sisco, a former under secretary of state for political affairs, told Cable News Network that Rajaie-Khorassani’s comments “confirm that there is at least a causal relationship” between the hostages and arms shipments.

‘Begin to Lay This Out’

“I think it’s important that the Administration now begin to lay this out,” Sisco said.

Rajaie-Khorassani’s emphasis on the prospects for improved U.S.-Iranian relations also were a “significant” feature of the Iranians’ public posture toward the United States, Sisco said.

In an animated, rambling session with a roomful of reporters, Rajaie-Khorassani said that McFarlane and four others arrived in Tehran at an undisclosed time “without any previous knowledge or invitation or even knowledge on the part of our officials” in the Iranian government.

“His expectation . . . was to have a meeting with some of our high-ranking officials,” including Rafsanjani, the ambassador said, “and that expectation was not met.” He would not say whether the McFarlane party met with lower-ranking officials.

The Iranian government determined that McFarlane actually was Reagan’s former national security adviser, he said, by wiretapping the telephone in his hotel room and recording calls from Tehran to the White House.

No Details Given

Rajaie-Khorassani did not explain in detail why McFarlane appeared in Tehran or how a prominent American could simply show up in Iran with the expectation of meeting senior officials. But he jokingly referred to the former White House aide as “the Six-Million-Dollar Man” and said he believes that the White House “thought that if they just sent somebody--one of their dignitaries with a cake and the rest of it--then we would be caught by surprise.”

McFarlane was said to have brought the Iranians a cake, two pistols and a Bible signed by Reagan as good-will gifts.

In prepared remarks at the start of his briefing, Rajaie-Khorassani also denied emphatically that Iran had knowingly received any arms shipments from Israel, a sworn enemy of the Muslim fundamentalist Tehran regime.

But he appeared to leave open the question of Israeli involvement by citing reports that all signs of Israeli origin were carefully removed from ships and military hardware entering Iran.

According to U.S. officials, Israel has been the major conduit for the arms and spare weapons parts delivered by the United States to Iran in the last 1 1/2 years. Some U.S. officials also believe that Israel has conducted its own arms trade with Iran, separate from any weapons-for-hostages swap.