Dow Jones Newswires
April 28, 1997

 E.U. Seen Unlikely To Change On Iran Despite U.S. Pressure

LUXEMBOURG (AP)--European Union foreign ministers will unlikely end their 'critical dialogue' with Iran Tuesday despite a recent court ruling saying Tehran's leaders ordered the murder of Iranian dissidents in Germany in 1992.

Ahead of the meeting, officials expected the ministers to consider such sanctions as ending government guarantees for loans to companies doing business in Iran. But the 'critical dialogue' is bound to stay despite pressure from Washington and rights groups for ending all ties with Iran.

On April 10 German court ruled Tehran's leaders ordered the Sept. 17, 1992, killings of four Iranian opponents in a Berlin restaurant. Iran has dismissed that finding as 'baseless.'

The court ruling led the E.U. nations to withdraw their envoys from Tehran on April 11, suspending the 'constructive dialogue' under which they trade with Iran while trying to pressure it into improving its human rights record.

However, the United States and human rights groups want the E.U. to freeze relations. In recent weeks, a U.S. delegation visited several E.U.
capitals.

On Tuesday, an association of Iranian dissidents is to stage a protest outside the E.U. meeting.

Shahin Gobadi, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said Monday he expected as many as 5,000 demonstrators.

His organization says at least 63 exiled Iranian dissidents have been slain abroad since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, 32 of them last year alone.

Fearful of jeopardizing their trade prospects, France and Germany oppose severing all ties with Tehran.

'It will be extremely difficult to reach unanimity' on ending the 'constructive dialogue' with Iran, said an E.U. diplomat ahead of the meeting.

Instead, the official said, the ministers will consider options under which their ambassadors can return to Tehran, further curbs on the movement of Iranian diplomats in the 15 E.U. nations and ending loan guarantees for investments in Iran.

Germany is Iran's biggest European commercial partner, with two-way trade reaching $1.8 billion last year.

Ahead of the meeting, the E.U. foreign ministers received a letter from Human Rights Watch saying they should 'link improved relations a with Iran to that country's compliance with          international human rights laws,' at home and abroad.

'Scores of dissident Iranian political figures and writers have been murdered abroad since the consolidation of the Islamic Republic in the early 1980s,' the letter added.