Tunisia Breaks Ties With Iran, Charges Subversion

This government broke diplomatic relations with Iran on Thursday, charging that Tehran’s Islamic fundamentalist government was using its embassy here as a base for disrupting public order.

At the same time, the Tunisian ambassador to Paris, Mustafa Zaanonni, said that a group of suspected terrorists arrested in France over the weekend carrying Tunisian passports are “known to Tunisian authorities as belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement,” a Shia Muslim extremist group.

Tunisia, a Muslim nation in North Africa, decided to break relations with Iran after President Habib Bourguiba conferred with top members of his Cabinet, including Premier Rashid Sfar.

The Iranian charge d’affaires in Tunis, Seyed Mahmoud Efjehi, reached by telephone at the Iranian Embassy, declined to comment on the rupture.

The break in relations comes a week after disturbances at Tunis University, which the government said was the work of a minority of students influenced by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Tunisia is the first Muslim nation to initiate a break in diplomatic ties with Iran for allegedly sponsoring subversive activities. However, Muslim Morocco broke relations with Iran in 1979 after a crowd stormed the Moroccan Embassy in Tehran during a demonstration protesting Morocco’s decision to host the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for a brief visit.

In recent days, several suspected terrorists carrying Tunisian passports have been arrested.

On Monday, President Hassan Gouled Aptidon of Djibouti said that a man with a Tunisian passport was arrested after last week’s bombing at a Djibouti cafe that killed 11 and injured 40. He said the suspect confessed to planting the bomb.

Over the weekend, French police arrested eight terrorist suspects and seized a stock of arms and explosives. Seven of the suspects had Tunisian passports.