WORLD : Iran Softens Stand on Britain
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NICOSIA, Cyprus — Iran would restore ties with Britain at once if London showed respect for Islamic values, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister for America and Europe was quoted today as saying.
“Relations with Britain can be restored even today,” the Iranian news agency IRNA reported Mahmoud Vaezi as saying in an interview with the Tehran Times.
Iran broke ties with Britain in March after then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie who he said had blasphemed against Islam in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Vaezi’s conditions for a renewal of ties appeared to be a softening of the Iranian position. It has previously said ties could be reconsidered only when Britain ended its support for Rushdie and his novel.
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