Contact:	Suzanne Trimel					For immediate release
		(212) 854-6579					(April 7, 1998)
		smt4@columbia.edu



Contacts Between Scholars Seen as Hope
For Eventual U.S.-Iran Reconcilation
	
	Five years ago, when the Iran specialist Gary Sick established a research 
project at Columbia University to study political and security issues in the Persian 
Gulf, he hoped to build a network of scholars in the United States and the Gulf 
region who would talk to one another about important developments -- even while 
their governments remain in conflict.
	"There is no gulf-wide forum to engage regional specialists and research 
institutions in a systematic and prolonged dialogue," said Dr. Sick, who was the 
chief White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the taking of 
American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran in 1979.  He is now Senior 
Research Scholar and Executive Director of Gulf 2000, the research project 
sponsored by Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs and 
supported by the W. Alton Jones, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations.
	Much like the well-known Dartmouth conferences between Americans and 
Soviets during the Cold War, a Gulf-wide network of scholars could be expected 
over time to bridge the chasm of distrust between the United States and Iran, 
which have had no diplomatic relations for nearly 20 years, Dr. Sick said.
	Suddenly, within the last six months, there have been signs that Dr. Sick's 
goal of an academic network between the Gulf region and the United States may 
be closer to reality and that U.S.-Iranian estrangement may be at an end.
 	"When we started, nobody was considering anything like this," said Dr. 
Sick. "We had the territory completely to ourselves.  That is just not true anymore.  
In the last six months, really, there's been a real blossoming of this kind of 
activity."
	A clear breakthrough came in January when President Mohammed 
Khatemi, in an interview with CNN, called for renewed exchanges of scholars, 
writers, artists and journalists between the United States and Iran.
	In response, Dr. Sick invited 100 key representatives of universities, 
foundations, non-governmental organizations, medical and relief agencies, 
cultural, religious and business organizations, and others with interests in Iran 
to Columbia last Wednesday (April 1) for a day-long discussion of how private 
groups can resume activities in Iran, even though Iran continues to refuse to 
hold talks with the U.S. government. Most of these groups either abandoned 
altogether or severely curtailed their activities in Iran following the severing of 
U.S.-Iranian relations in 1979.
	Dr. Sick emphasized that the conference was intended to build and expand 
unofficial contacts between the United States and Iran and was not a forum for 
discussing the politics of U.S.-Iranian relations.  Still, he was encouraged that 
both the Iranian Mission to the United Nations (Iran has no embassy in the 
United States) and the State Department sent representatives to the conference -- 
signs that the two countries are moving, however cautiously, toward a more 
positive framework for future relations.
	Participants represented the Ford Foundation, the Center for 
Contemporary Arab Studies and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding 
at Georgetown University, Harvard Medical School, Princeton University, 
Internews, Human Rights Watch, the Carnegie Corporation, Pen American 
Center, the Mennonite Central Committee, the United States Information 
Agency, the United Nations Association, and Morgan Stanley.
	At the opening session, Dr. Sick said: "The question today is: Is it safe to go 
back in the water?  Can we imagine that a new start can be made with Iran?  I 
think the answer is yes."
	The conference participants were told by Professor Mahmood Sariolghalam 
of Tehran, who this year is a visiting professor at Ohio State University, that 
studying in the United States is "the number one priority" for Iranian students 
seeking master's degrees and Ph.D's.  But because of the difficulties involved in 
gaining permission to study in the United States, these students have opted 
instead to study in Great Britain primarily and also in Canada and Australia.  
Professor Sariolghalam also tried to set aside misconceptions that may be held by 
Americans about Iranian society today.  "Domestic issues are dominant issues 
today, particularly economic development and political stability -- not the 
Palestinian question or the threats against Salman Rushdie."
	Ambassador Roscoe Suddarth, president of the Middle East Institute in 
Washington, D.C., said "the Khatemi phenomenon"  has piqued interest in Iran 
in both official Washington and among private policy analysts.  He said while 
there is no official contact between Tehran and Washington, "the Iranians are 
certainly talking frankly to people" at conferences and other occasions.
	Dr. Sick believes rapprochement between the governments of the United 
States and Iran will naturally flow from the kinds of exchanges that Khatemi has 
endorsed.  Educational and cultural groups have had a number of recent 
successes.  A Mennonite group has established a working relationship with the 
Iranian Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross, and Search for Common 
Ground, a Washington, D.C.-based group which helped organize a U.S. wrestling 
team to compete in an international event in Teheran in February -- the first U.S. 
sporting or cultural exchange in Iran since the hostage crisis -- is planning a 
second event, an Iranian-American film festival.
	Chris Stevens, a State Department official, said there has already been an 
increase in requests for visas for Iranian visitors sponsored by American 
organizations. "It is United States policy to encourage people-to-people exchanges 
between the two countries," Mr. Stevens said. "We believe this is valuable.  It's 
possible it could create a situation where better political relations would result."
 	Last Wednesday, while the conference was being held, the State 
Department issued a new but softer warning on travel to Iran by Americans.  
Instead of warning categorically against it, the document urges Americans to 
defer travel to Iran, removes a previous assertion that the country is "dangerous" 
for U.S. citizens and deletes references to "fines, public floggings and long prison 
terms" for lawbreakers.  The new warning also reflects Khatemi's call for 
dialogue and exchanges. 

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