Iranian Journalists Cancel Albright Interview

In a setback to efforts at U.S.-Iran rapprochement, several Iranian journalists tentatively scheduled to interview Secretary of State Madeleine Albright this month have canceled their trip here under pressure from Iranian conservatives.

The interview, by leading editors and reporters from a cross-section of Iranian papers, would have been a response to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s groundbreaking interview with Cable News Network in January, when he called for a break in the wall of mistrust with the United States.

The State Department said Monday that it “regretted” the journalists’ decision. It added that the department hopes the Iranian editors and reporters will reconsider their decision. “We saw it as an opportunity for the secretary to address the Iranian people directly. We hope they will reschedule their visit,” an official said.

The State Department decided to include several papers partly because of recent requests by Iranian media for interviews with several U.S. officials but also to “have the widest possible impact,” the official said.

The cancellation reflects the growing conflict in Iran as conservatives attempt to limit the political and social openings of Khatami’s young, reformist government. The pressure, which included the closing last week of the leading new independent paper after less than four months of publication, is intended in part to block openings with the United States.

The visit was initially designed to coincide with a speech in Washington this Wednesday by Hadi Nejad Hosseinian, Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations. His trip here required a special waiver from the United States. The movement of Iranian diplomats is normally restricted to a small area around New York City.

The event is sponsored by Middle East Insight, a Washington-based magazine that has also tried to help organize a media visit.

In Iran, the newspaper Farda reported that the journalists decided against the trip because it had been “politicized.” Farda is one of the leading papers that had requested an interview with Albright.

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Last week, the conservative Iranian judiciary revoked the publishing license of Jameh, or Society, a new paper that had become a barometer of political and social changes in Iran.

The publisher of a second moderate paper, Gozaresh-e-Ruz, or News of the Day, was released on bail Sunday, just as the editor was summoned for questioning on “unethical reporting.” The paper, launched only last month, ceased publication last week.

A U.S. official confirmed that the journalists “appear to have been spooked” by the press clampdown.

Meanwhile, the conservative-dominated parliament has summoned two of the new reformist government’s most outspoken advocates of change to explain their positions. Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri is to appear Sunday to defend himself against a call for impeachment by 31 members of parliament. Nouri has been the leading defender of beleaguered Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, one of Khatami’s closest political allies. The mayor is on trial for corruption, charges also made by the conservative judiciary.

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has also been summoned by parliament to defend the government’s granting of visas to media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Judith Kipper and Anthony H. Cordesman, co-directors of the Mideast program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In a bizarre byproduct of the conservative campaign, 20 members of parliament have petitioned the president’s office to ensure that Iran’s World Cup soccer team does not exchange shirts with the American team, a World Cup tradition, when the two teams play in Lyons, France, on Sunday.