Iranian Official Says Moscow Talks Are a Prelude to Closer Relations With Soviets

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati arrived Friday for talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze in an effort to improve relations between the two countries.

Velayati is the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit Moscow since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power in Tehran eight years ago.

Tehran’s official news agency called the visit a “prelude to a serious political affair with the Soviet Union.”

Velayati, received at the airport by Shevardnadze, immediately plunged into the first Kremlin meetings of his three-day official visit.

The trip, proposed by Moscow a year ago, is a continuation of slowly improving relations between the two countries, which share a 1,200-mile border.

‘Businesslike and Frank’

But Moscow’s official Tass news agency said the talks between the two men were “businesslike and frank”--language that usually indicates differences.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, reported from Tehran that Velayati “would explicitly express Iran’s viewpoints on relations between the two countries and regional issues.”

Velayati was also quoted as saying that the talks would be “a prelude to a serious political affair with the Soviet Union as Iran’s northern neighbor.”

IRNA said Velayati believes “good neighborly relations” between Moscow and Tehran are “an important and determining factor in the balance and stability of the region.”

Velayati also “expressed hope that his visit would pave the way for mutual cooperation based on non-interference in the internal affairs of each other,” IRNA said.

One of the major issues between the two countries is the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. Moscow also is supplying arms to Iraq, although it has claimed neutrality in the 6 1/2-year-old Iran-Iraq War.

Moscow had hoped to gain from the turmoil that followed the pullout of Americans from Iran after the 1979 overthrow of the shah, but Khomeini’s fundamentalist Muslim regime proved just as tough on the Soviet Union, with the Islamic government banning the pro-Moscow Tudeh Party.

Iranian natural gas imports were halted after Tehran tried to sharply increase prices. Airline flights between the countries were also halted and in mid-1985 Moscow withdrew 1,200 Soviets from projects in Iran because of danger from the Persian Gulf War.

However, relations since have warmed. Flights resumed a year ago, and in December, Iran signed a major economic pact with the Soviet Union to resume natural gas shipments and to begin a number of Soviet construction projects in Iran.