Khatami accepts invitation to visit Germany
TEHRAN, April 11 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami accepted
an invitation from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Sunday to visit Germany,
the official IRNA news agency reported.
Khatami, speaking to IRNA after a meeting here with visiting German
Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach, said the visit would take place at an
"appropriate time."
"I am confident that a new stage has started in relations between
Iran and Germany," Khatami added.
In Bonn, the German chancellery also confirmed the invitation and Khatami's
acceptance.
The invitation to Khatami to visit Germany was delivered by Hombach,
who arrived here on Saturday.
His arrival coincided with the release on bail of a German businessman,
Helmut Hofer, who has been detained in a Tehran prison for 20 months for
having an alleged illegal relationship with an Iranian Moslem woman.
The case has strained ties between the two countries, leading to a
resumption of tensions after German justice officials in 1997 accused Tehran
of masterminding political assassinations in Germany.
Last November, Schroeder appointed Hombach his personal envoy in the
Hofer case. Tehran newspapers had speculated that the minister would leave
the country with Hofer.
Instead, Hofer, 57, was released from a Tehran prison Saturday night
on bail of 500 million rials (160,000 dollars), a spokesman for the judiciary,
Fotowat Nassiri Savadkouhi, said.
Savadkouhi said that Hofer, who was detained in September 1997 and
sentenced to death four months later, "will not be allowed to leave
the country until his trial reopens."
Hofer's conviction was thrown out by the supreme court earlier this
year for lack of evidence but a date for a new trial has not been set.
A German chancellery statement said Hombach "welcomed the release
of Helmut Hofer, who now has freedom of movement within the country (Iran),
and said he was convinced that the case was now headed in the right direction."
"A satisfactory solution will be beneficial to the development
of good bilateral political, economic and cultural ties," the text
read.
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