Iran Offers Its Help in Solving Hostage Crisis : Bush ‘Encouraged’ by Rafsanjani Offer but Takes Cautious Stance

President Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran said Friday there is a reasonable solution to the hostage crisis and he is willing to help the United States find it.

“I tell the White House the problem of Lebanon has solutions, the freeing of the hostages has solutions--reasonable, prudent solutions,” he said in his sermon in Tehran at weekly Muslim prayers.

Rafsanjani, who was inaugurated Thursday, is believed eager to improve ties with the West and to erase Iran’s image as a sponsor of international terrorism.

“These bullyings, arrogant approaches and tyranny will not solve the problems,” he said in the sermon, which was broadcast by Tehran radio. “Come, let us approach the problem reasonably; we too will help solve the problems there, so the people of the region can live in peace and harmony.”

‘Brutal Process’ Decried

In Washington, President Bush vowed to explore Rafsanjani’s overture “to the fullest,” but he decried the “brutal process” that the hostages and their families are undergoing.

“I don’t want to raise hopes beyond fulfillment, but there’s reason to be somewhat encouraged,” Bush said.

Bush’s his chief spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, urged caution. “We are always skeptical of what we hear” from Iran, he said.

Fitzwater said that although no efforts had been made by the President or other top U.S. officials to deal with Iranian officials directly, information was being exchanged with that country’s leaders on the situation through third-country intermediaries.

Fitzwater, meanwhile, denied that Bush had selected specific targets in Lebanon for an air strike if kidnapers had carried out a threat to kill American hostage Joseph Cicippio.

No Final Decisions

“I will say he did not make final decisions,” Fitzwater said, referring to a story in Friday’s New York Times that Bush was prepared to order the Sixth Fleet to launch air strikes against suspected terrorist strongholds, including a base in eastern Lebanon.

“It does not help the United States government or the United States to be discussing military tactics . . . to be flexing our muscles in public,” Fitzwater said. “We do not believe it’s in the best interests of releasing the hostages.”

In the streets of Beirut, pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim zealots of Hezbollah, the group believed to hold the Western hostages, paraded to denounce the United States.

The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed willingness to relay to Israel the demands for a prisoner release made Thursday by Cicippio’s kidnapers when they suspended plans to kill him.

U.N. envoy Marrack Goulding sought Algeria’s help in determining the fate of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, the U.S. Marine kidnaped on U.N. duty in February, 1988, whose captors said they hanged him Monday in retaliation for Israel’s abduction of a Shiite Muslim cleric.

A videotape was released, showing a man on a gallows who appeared to be Higgins, but no body has been found and some reports have said he was killed months ago.

A knowledgeable Shiite Muslim source in Beirut, speaking privately, said the final word on Cicippio’s reprieve came from Rafsanjani, who “must have used his first day in office to pressure the captors to spare Cicippio’s life.”

Sheik’s Freedom Asked

In his Friday sermon, Rafsanjani said if the United States wants hostages freed, it must ask Israel to free Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid.

Israel sent commandos to southern Lebanon on July 28 to abduct Obeid, a spiritual leader of Hezbollah, which means Party of God. It has offered to trade him and other Shiite prisoners for three Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon and the Western hostages.

About the Higgins killing, the Iranian president said: “We do not make any judgment about the group that executed the American colonel. You cannot condemn the innocent people of Lebanon . . . on the vague basis that some group has possibly killed someone (Higgins) for a crime.”

If the U.S. responds by saying it cannot pressure Israel into freeing Obeid, “this isn’t acceptable to us,” Rafsanjani said.

8 Americans Held

Obeid’s kidnaping triggered the apparent execution of Higgins and the death threat against Cicippio.

Sixteen Westerners are captives in Lebanon, including eight Americans. Held longest is Terry A. Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent of the Associated Press, who was seized March 16, 1985.

The Revolutionary Justice Organization, one of the kidnaping groups believed to be fronts for Hezbollah, said Thursday it was suspending its death sentence against Cicippio and replacing it with demands that Israel free Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. It said it would provide a list to the Red Cross.

In Jerusalem, Israel’s top leaders conferred about a response to the demands, which Revolutionary Justice said must be accepted “within days.” It did not say what would happen to Cicippio if Israel refused.

‘He’s An American’

Bush was asked if Cicippio deserved the full backing of the United States, in view of the fact that he ignored U.S. warnings to leave Lebanon.

“That doesn’t mean we wash our hands of it,” Bush said. “He’s an American and he is entitled to the concern of the President, and every one of these senators and everybody in our Administration. And he’s got a great, big, wonderful family up there that are eating their hearts out in Norristown, Pa.”