MANAMA, Bahrain: Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini told visiting Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that Moscow should embrace Islam and join Iran in “confronting the devilish acts of the West.”

Khomeini’s remarks Sunday coincided with an announcement by Iranian parliamentary officials that they would vote this week on whether to sever diplomatic ties with Britain in the ongoing controversy over “The Satanic Verses” by British author Salman Rushdie.

Official Tehran Radio said Khomeini made the remarks during a meeting at his home in the northern Tehran suburb of Jamaran.

“(Khomeini) stressed … good neighborly ties and the expansion of strong ties in various dimensions. In confronting the devilish acts of the West,” Iran’s official news agency IRNA quoted Tehran Radio as saying.

In the first meeting in a decade between Khomeini and a senior foreign dignitary, Khomeini also told Shevardnadze he hoped Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev would study his earlier message to abandon “decadent Marxism” and embrace Islam.

The Soviet delegation arrived in Tehran Saturday on a three-day visit, the final leg of Shevardnadze’s 10 day Mideast tour, which has also taken him to Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq.

The call for closer Soviet ties came as the Iranian parliament decided to vote next week on whether to break ties with Britain. More than 100 deputies proposed a bill to sever ties in response to what IRNA described as London’s “hostile reaction” to Khomeini’s death degree against Rushdie for his novel, which Moslems consider blasphemous.

The 12member European Community a week ago agreed to a British proposal to pull diplomats ‘out of Tehran in the wake of the death threat.

Khomeini’s remarks Sunday marked the first time the Iranian spiritual leader has publicly expressed a desire to exploit his country’s strategic position to play the Soviet Union off against the west,

Ina related development, a United Arab Emirates newspaper Sunday quoted Western diplomatic sources in New Delhi, India as saying the Israeli secret service Mossad has offered Rushdie “lifelong” protection from Islamic fanatics.

Rushdie, an Indian born naturalized Briton, is in hiding in Britain under Scotland yard protection.

The 41 year old author broke his silence Sunday on the controversy and death threats and said he identifies with the “stupid, humiliated rage” felt by American writer Philip Roth, whose writings have angered Jews.

Khomeini had praised the Kremin leader’s courage in reforming Soviet society but said the answers to Moscow’s problems cannot be found in the West and that Gorbachevy should study Islam as a solution.

Shevardnadze said Sunday that while Iran and the Soviet Union have their differences, the two neighbors also agreed on some major points.

There’s no doubt that we agree on some of the major points, but there are also some points where we have differences of view,” IRNA quoted Shevardnadze as saying.

Shevardnadze also vowed that the Soviet leadership has made some serious mistakes … there was also the violation of human rights. We will reform these mistakes,” he was quoted as saying.

Khomeini also said he wanted “to open a new window for Mr. Gorbachev to the greater world, the world after death, which is the eternal world that was the basic point of my message.”

Article extracted from this publication >>  March 3, 1989