- TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's parliament
revealed that it was behind a controversial opinion poll on US-Iran relations,
and demanded the courts stop pursuing those who published it.
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- "The parliamentary national security and foreign
policy committee, which studies relations with the United States, ordered
the institute to carry out the poll," Ali Tajernia, an MP who sits
on the committee, told AFP.
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- The September 22 publication of the poll, which found
that 74.7 percent of people here favour restoring ties with arch-foe Washington,
drew the wrath of the conservative press and sparked judicial proceedings.
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- The courts have summoned Behrouz Gheranpayeh, the head
of one of the three semi-governmental institutes that carried out the poll,
and Abdollah Nasseri, the head of the state news agency IRNA which published
it.
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- The reformist-controlled parliament called on the courts
to stop the legal proceedings against IRNA and the National Society of
Public Opinion Studies, which is attached to the ministry of culture and
Islamic guidance.
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- "IRNA and the research institutes have not committed
any crime," another MP, Ahmad Bourqani, told IRNA.
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- Concern was also voiced by government spokesman Abdollah
Razanzadeh, IRNA said.
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- But the call met with a furious response from Said Mortazavi,
the head of Iran's press court.
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- In a letter carried by the hardline Kayhan evening paper,
Mortazavi said Bourqani "was interfering, without justification, in
a judicial affair". He added that the head of the polling institute
had confessed that one of his staff was on the payroll of the Iraq-based
People's Mujahedin armed opposition group.
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- Iran and the United States severed diplomatic relations
after the 1979 Islamic revolution, when a group of radical students seized
the US embassy here and held its staff hostage.
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- In January, US President George W. Bush lumped Iran into
an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
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- According to IRNA, the poll found that 45.8 percent of
respondents believed US policies on Iran were "to some extent correct".
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