President-elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad said Monday he wants to develop ties with all countries, especially in Europe, provided they respect Iran’s ‘democratic choice’, the student-run news agency ISNA reported. ‘We want equitable and advancing relations with all countries in the world, particularly with the Europeans. But we advise Western countries to treat us in a way that does not show prejudice,’ said Ahmadinejad, who is to take up his duties as president in August. ‘Western countries ... cannot profess to be defenders of democracy and free choice and at the same time attack the democratic attitude of the Iranian people, as demonstrated by the participation of 30 million voters in the presidential election,’ he said to a group of Iranian ministers. Ahmadinejad said his government would focus on the ‘population’s problems and build a country that is better equipped to respond to enemies of the people.’

After Ahmadinejad’s surprise election victory on June 24, former US embassy hostages claimed he was one of the main actors in the Tehran ordeal that lasted 444 days between 1979 and 1981.

However, Ahmadinejad’s allies as well as several reformist leaders - who participated in the hostage-taking and are politically opposed to the new president - have denied he was involved.

Meanwhile, Austrian authorities said Saturday they have documents implicating Ahmadinejad in the assassination of Kurdish opposition leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna in 1989, which Iranian officials have also denied. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Sunday the accusations were ‘Zionist propaganda.’

Ahmadinejad was directly involved in plotting the 1989 assassination of the Kurdish rebel leader, an official of the banned Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran charged Monday. ‘According to our information, the Iranian government formed three committees for the assassination’ of then KDPI leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, party offical Hassan Ashrafi told AFP at his base in neighbouring Iraq. ‘The first one planned it, the second one which was led by Ahmadinejad was tasked with facilitating it and the third one executed it.’

Ashrafi said aides of then president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had approached the KDPI seeking a secret meeting with Ghassemlou which they had then abused to murder him.

Meanwhile, the British and German governments said Monday that criminal allegations being made against Iran’s president-elect will not affect Europe’s nuclear negotiations with Tehran. After meeting in London on Monday to discus a variety of issues, including the European Union’s budget and constitution, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the allegations against Ahmadinejad have not been proven. ‘I’m aware of the reports. We have not been able to reach any conclusive view about this, and we may not be able to. The Iranian government has not validated the reports,’ Straw said at a news conference with Fischer at the foreign office.

‘Our negotiations have been with the government of Iran. We reached certain agreements in May and have undertaken to put proposals to the government of Iran by the end of July or the first week of August. That remains our intention,’ he said, without providing details. Fischer said he agreed with Straw.

In Tehran on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Europeans should not join Americans in making false allegations against Ahmadinejad.

Britain, Germany and France are leading European Union efforts to persuade Tehran to permanently halt nuclear enrichment activities, which the United States claims are part of Iran’s plan to develop a nuclear arsenal. Iran rejects the US claims and insists it is pursuing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, such as generating power.

Uranium enriched to low levels can be used for energy while highly enriched uranium can be used in bombs. US President George W. Bush has said the claims swirling around Ahmadinejad are not his primary concern and he instead wants the Europeans to make clear to the new leader that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be tolerated.
The Europeans are offering economic incentive in hope of persuading Iran to permanently freeze its enrichment program on its own to avoid UN intervention and possible sanctions. Ahmadinejad, the former mayor of Tehran, has said Iran will not curtail its nuclear program and will restart uranium enrichment activities, which it voluntarily suspended in November as part of negotiations with the Europeans.

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Mahmood Ahmadinejad. (AP)