Iran visit bolsters France's Middle East role

France has strengthened its position as Europe's main interlocutor with the Muslim world by sending the French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, to Tehran at the weekend.

Mr Vedrine's two-day visit was the first by a French foreign minister to Iran in seven years, and marked a new stage in France's assertive Middle East policy, as well as a small breakthrough in President Mohamed Khatami's attempts to open his country to the outside world.

Mr Vedrine carried a message of "opening, friendship and readiness" from President Jacques Chirac, along with an invitation for Mr Khatami to make a state visit to Paris. The journey - the first by an Iranian head of state to a Western capital since the 1979 revolution - could take place next year.

Since his landslide election victory in May 1997, Mr Khatami has kept the affection of the Iranian people, but his attempts to reform Iran are constantly undermined by the conservative religious faction. The Iranian press presented Mr Vedrine's visit as a show of support for Mr Khatami, something the French envoy denied. "There is no question of supporting or taking sides," he said. "I have come to assess the possibility of Iran's new leaders imposing change, since there is reticence, and this has repercussions on many conflicts in this region."

Iran was long seen as an exporter of revolutionary Islam, eager to destabilise its neighbours. But in their meetings with Mr Vedrine, Iranian leaders portrayed their country as a haven of stability between a decimated Iraq and an Afghanistan in the grip of the extremist Taliban.

Mr Vedrine met three times with his Iranian counterpart, Mr Kamal Kharazi. The ministers discussed the explosive situation in Lebanon, where Iran continues to support Hizbullah. At a time when Israeli officials are threatening to avenge the deaths of Israeli occupation troops in southern Lebanon by attacking Lebanese infrastructure, Mr Vedrine said that "France, like Iran, is ready to find a solution to ease tension in Lebanon".

Yet again, Paris has stolen a march on Washington in the Middle East. President Chirac cemented close relations with the Arab countries bordering Israel during an October 1996 tour of the region. Last month, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria made a rare visit abroad - to Paris. The French desire to preserve good relations with the Muslim world was evident last week, when Paris's official communique "taking note" of the US attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan contrasted with the enthusiastic support expressed by Britain and Spain.

Europe as a whole has decided to gamble on Mr Khatami's "new Iran". Last winter, the EU dropped the word "critical" from the six year-old official policy of "critical dialogue" with the Islamic Republic. The Italian prime minister travelled to Tehran last month, and Mr Kharazi recently visited Madrid. But it was the French company, Total, that dared to invest $2 billion in the Iranian oil industry last year, in defiance of US threats.

Iranian officials told Mr Vedrine they now seek French cooperation in nuclear energy, civil aviation, agriculture and health.

The only false note was on human rights. Iranian officials refused to make excuses for recent executions of members of the Ba'hai faith, nor have they compromised on the 1989 fatwa against the British writer, Mr Salman Rushdie.