Embattled Iranian Culture Minister Ayataollah Mohajerani said Monday he is prepared to stay in office at the request of President Mohammad Khatami, who is running for re-election next year.
The 46-year-old minister, long a target of conservative wrath and a leading light of the reform movement who has already "resigned" twice, told AFP that he was willing to stand by his close ally.
"I thought my staying on could lead to a certain hardening politically. My departure, in the last year of Khatami's term, was a logical next step," he said in an interview.
"Whether the president accepts my resignation or not, whether I am a minister or a vice president, for example, I will be by his side," Mohajerani said.
Mohajerani, whose ministry issues press licenses, survived an impeachment scare last year when parliament was still in the hands of conservatives angry over his "laxity" in controlling the press.
He told AFP that he first tried to resign in April, just before the conservative courts closed more than 20 mostly pro-reform newspapers and journals, depriving Khatami of one of his most effective political tools.
The president refused but Mohajerani again submitted a letter of resignation earlier this month, which Khatami reportedly asked him to tone down.
Mohajerani said no one has yet emerged who could be a clear successor as culture minister.
"Some people were suggested but did not accept, while others who want the post will not get approval from parliament," he said.
He also underlined that the re-election of Khatami "will not mean that all our problems are solved. But any other outcome would be worse."
He praised Khatami's tenure, noting that "before the revolution we had a thousand years of despotism" and that democracy will take time to blossom in full.
Yet he acknowledged that the president, who swept to office in 1997 with 69 percent of the popular vote, "could appear to be weakened" by the high-profile troubles of some of his closest allies.
Former interior minister Abdollah Nuri was given five years in prison for spreading "anti-Islamic" propaganda while dissident pro-reform cleric Hassan Yusefi Eshkevari is facing a possible death sentence for a litany of serious charges including apostasy.
Meanwhile there is the lingering problem of the press. Mohajerani noted that the newspaper closures had been announced by the conservative-led judiciary as being only temporary.
"I think they've lasted a little longer than they should have," he said laconically, adding that he regularly reminds newspaper chiefs of the difficulties still ahead.
"I tell newspaper bosses that freedom is like the mountain road north out of Tehran, which has a thousand curves. It's not a highway," he said, noting that 10 new press authorizations had been approved.
Mohajerani, who has also been sharply criticized by conservatives over his role in helping Iran develop a world-famous cinema industry, also rued that the nation's "film noir" was presenting just one image of the country -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
