NEW YORK — Several phone calls by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to officials in Iran may have played a key role in staving off charges last month against 13 Jews jailed there on suspicion of spying for Israel and the United States.
Annan’s calls, placed on Aug. 18, came at the request of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She, in turn, asked the U.N. leader to act after hearing from leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations the previous night.
“This was a key issue on the agenda,” one informed source said about the Aug. 17 meeting between Albright and Presidents Conference leaders.
The Annan initiative, was part of a broad salvo of appeals to Iran from diplomats around the world. Responding to reports from Tehran that an announcement of charges against some or all of the 13 Jews would be made Aug. 19, Jewish leaders asked diplomatic contacts worldwide to appeal to their Iranian counterparts not to proceed. Officials in Tokyo and Paris were among those that responded.
The prospect of formal charges or trials for the 13 appears to have been forestalled for now — whether thanks to those efforts, because of domestic reasons or because the original reports were simply incorrect.
The 13 — mostly religious leaders and teachers from the cities of Shiraz and Isfahan.– remain imprisoned in the city of Shiraz. The U.S. and Israel both vehemently deny ever using them as spies.
In Washington, officials of the Presidents Conference seized the opportunity of a previously scheduled meeting with Albright the night of Aug. 17 to raise the plight of 13 with her.
Called at Albright’s invitation, the meeting was attended by Presidents Conference chairman Ronald Lauder; its immediate past chairman, Melvin Salberg; and executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein.
“It was made clear that if Iran went forward, the reaction of the Jewish community not just here, but worldwide, would be loud,” one informed source said. Given the hostile relations that limit the United States’ influence in Iran, “It was suggested that Kofi might intercede.”
When Albright saw leaders of the Anti-Defamation League the following night for another previously scheduled meeting, she told them Annan had placed calls to key Iranian officials. The individuals who were phoned were not revealed.
Meanwhile, an explosive story published last week in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz disclosed years of secret contacts between Iranian Jewish community leaders outside Iran and key officials in Iran’s intelligence and political establishment.
The meetings, according to Ha’aretz, began four years ago, when Iran’s Intelligence Ministry sought contact with the substantial Persian Jewish community in Los Angeles. To maintain its distance, leaders of this community ultimately designated Hamid Sabi, a prominent London Jewish lawyer of Iranian origin, as its contact person.
Jewish community leaders in the United States sought to use the contacts to resolve difficult problems faced by their brethren back home in Iran. The contacts are credited, for example, with leading the government to grant Jews exit visas more easily. But, the article noted, they failed to prevent the execution of several Jews in recent years — or the recent arrest and threatened execution of the 13 suspected of espionage.
In an effort to resolve their plight, the paper reported, activists with the Council of Iranian Jewish Organizations in Los Angeles more recently sought contact through an intermediary with Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Islamic regime’s still powerful former president.
According to the paper, Rafsanjani got word back that he was prepared to obtain the freedom of the 13 if the Jews could unlock for Iran long-blocked loans from the World Bank and Japan.
Now, dismayed Jewish leaders charge that, with the article’s publication, any contacts with Iranian officials to help the 13 effectively have been killed.