Rice slams Iran human rights record

[gldstwmn]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...5E1702,00.html

From correspondents in London
February 04, 2005
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped up Washington's verbal assault on Iran today, saying the hardline Islamic regime's treatment of its people was "something to be loathed".

"I don't think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for either the Iranian people or for the region," Ms Rice told reporters accompanying her to Europe and the Middle East.

"I think our European allies agree that the Iranian regime's human rights behaviour and its behaviour towards its own population is something to be loathed," she said.

Ms Rice arrived in London this evening to start a week-long tour of Europe and the Middle East, her first trip abroad since replacing Colin Powell last week.

Ms Rice picked up on US President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in Washington yesterday, branding Tehran "the world's primary state sponsor of terror" and pledging solidarity with Iranians' desire for freedom.

She came close to advocating outright regime change in the clergy-ruled Islamic republic, which Mr Bush famously included in his "axis of evil" three years ago alongside North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"What we support is that the Iranian people should have a chance to determine their own future, and right now under this regime they have no opportunity to determine their own future," she said.

Iran and its suspected nuclear arms program were likely to figure prominently during Ms Rice's trip, which precedes a trip to Europe later this month by Mr Bush.

Her itinerary includes Britain, Germany and France, which are involved in a halting effort to persuade the Iranians to renounce their suspected nuclear ambitions.

Some European officials have called for more direct US involvement in the negotiations, but Ms Rice demurred.

"The Iranians know what they need to do," she said.

"It's not the absence of anybody's involvement that is keeping the Iranians from knowing what they need to do."