[NYTr] Iran says "confessions" unveil U.S. plot

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

Reuters -  Jul 22, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSHAF23166220070722

Iran says "confessions" unveil U.S. plot

By Hossein Jaseb

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that televised
"confessions" of two detained American-Iranians unveiled a U.S.-backed
plan to topple Iran's clerical establishment.

State television aired a program called "In the Name of Democracy" on
Wednesday and Thursday, featuring interviews with Haleh Esfandiari and
Kian Tajbakhsh, who Iran accuses of being involved in a U.S.-backed plot
to stage a "velvet revolution" in the Islamic state.

Washington has called the program illegitimate and coerced, urging Iran
to immediately release the two dual nationals, arrested separately in
May while visiting Iran from the United States.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the program proved
the United States had a long-term program to "overthrow the system" in
Iran.

"The confessions of the two detained people uncovers a long-term plan
which America has invested in and has allocated a great budget for,"
Hosseini told a weekly news conference.

Esfandiari, an academic at the U.S.-based Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, said on Thursday she had helped create a network
"to lead to very fundamental changes in Iran's system."

Senior cleric Ahmad Khatami, member of a body with power to sack or
appoint Iran's supreme leader, said on Friday: "The confessions proved
America wanted to weaken the system by using intellectuals."

U.S. REQUEST

A U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Friday: "This should
be an embarrassment to the Iranian regime. Is it really possible to
imagine that a government is so fragile and so under siege that
individuals coming to visit elderly family members threaten its
existence?"

He said the U.S. request through the Swiss and other embassies in Tehran
to have consular access to the pair, had been refused by Tehran. Tehran
and Washington have no diplomatic relations since Iran's 1979 Islamic
revolution.

Tajbakhsh, a consultant with the Soros institute, founded by billionaire
investor George Soros, told the same program: "The aim of the Soros
centre was to bring a model of the Western democracy" to Iran after an
eventual conflict.

The U.S.-based Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute said it was
"deeply concerned over Iran's use of deliberately contrived television
footage" of the pair.

The program made no mention of two other American-Iranians detained on
spying charges, one of whom has been freed on bail.

Iranian TV has in the past broadcast the so-called "confessions" by
dissidents serving jail sentences for alleged attempts to undermine the
Islamic Republic.

Washington is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its disputed nuclear
program, which Iran says is solely to generate electricity. U.S. forces
have detained five Iranians in Iraq on charges of backing militants
there.

The two countries are set to hold fresh talks in Iraq soon, following a
landmark meeting in Baghdad in May.