Just as a 150-strong Saudi delegation, headed by the kingdom’s minister for industries, Dr Hashem Abdullah Yamani, was about to arrive in Tehran last month, the US announced that it had fresh evidence of Iranian involvement in the Khobar bombings in June 1996.
The student demonstrations in Tehran during the second week of July were widely interpreted, especially in the west, as a major crisis in the Revolution and possibly even the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic. Western media and government officials welcomed them as the beginning of a popular uprising against the Islamic state.
Last month’s brief troubles in Tehran - which were effectively ended by the mass rally on July 14 at which almost one million people came into Tehran’s streets to support the Islamic system and the Rahbar, Ayatullah Seyyed Ali Khamenei - were clearly manipulated by the enemies of the Islamic Revolution.
The importance of Muslim unity, preservation of the Ummah against international plots, support for the intifadah in Palestine and the Islamic resistance in Lebanon as well as condemnation of Zionist attempts to usurp the holy city of al-Quds were major themes discussed at the eleventh International Conference on Islamic Unity in Tehran
If the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit (held in Tehran from December 9 to 11) had only brought together heads of State and senior representatives from 55 Muslim countries, and achieved nothing else, it would be considered a major success.
