November 12, 2003	Wednesday	Ramazan 16, 1424

NEW YORK, Nov 11: US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday delivered a surprisingly sharp attack on Iran’s religious leadership, bluntly accusing it of sullying Islam for political means.

In a speech to the City College of New York focused on US efforts to promote democracy in the Muslim world, Mr Powell said the “hidebound” mullahs would not be able to deny the Iranian people their desire for reform.

“The Iranian people want their freedom back, of this there can be no doubt,” he said at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of US statesman and diplomat Ralph Bunche.

“They do not want to banish Islam from their lives, far from it,” Mr Powell said. “They want to be free from those who have dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter.

“They have been imprisoned for wanting this, they have been gagged for wanting this, they have been intimidated and threatened for wanting this, some have already died for wanting this,” he said.

Colin Powell noted that despite crackdowns on pro-reform students and media, tens of thousands of Iranians, many of them women, had turned out to greet Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi when she returned home last month.

“The hidebound clerics of Iran know what it means too,” he said. “Should they be worried? Does morning follow night? They should be.”

Mr Powell did not elaborate on the comments which came about midway through his lengthy address in which he defended President George Bush’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanded on the president’s call for democratic reform in the Middle East.

However, the remarks come at a critical time for Iran, which Mr Bush branded a member of the so-called “axis of evil” two years ago along with North Korea and Iraq and is now facing US-led efforts to stem its nuclear programmes.

Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear energy programme to develop atomic weapons in secret, a charge Iran vehemently denies.

FURIOUS RESPONSE: In a furious response to the US secretary of state’s attack, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday the United States administration knows nothing about Islam or democracy.

“The various comments made by the US officials on Islam and Muslims clearly prove they do not know Islam and Muslims, just as they do not know Iraq, the Middle East and democracy,” spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the IRNA news agency.

“With these sort of comments they are disgracing themselves,” Mr Asefi responded, saying the Islamic republic “strongly condemns this open intervention in Iran’s internal affairs”.

“It is astonishing that the current US administration, which came into power through a tampered election, keeps on talking about democracy,” the spokesman added in a jibe at the disputed presidential election that brought George Bush into the White House.

Less than a week ago, Mr Bush called on Iran to embrace democracy, in comments that were also angrily condemned by Iran in what has been a mounting rhetorical slanging match between the two old enemies.—AFP