2006年VOA标准英语-Former Iranian President Visits US Amid Nuclear

By Leta Hong Fincher
Washington, DC
07 September 2006
 
watch Khatami Visit report

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is on a private visit to Washington, where he will give a major address today. His visit comes as the Bush administration is trying to gain international support for sanctions on Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.

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Mohammad Khatami    
  
Mohammad Khatami is the highest-ranking Iranian to visit Washington since the 1979 revolution, when Islamic fundamentalists seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage. 

Former President Khatami is visiting the United States at the invitation of private organizations. Washington has a policy of no contact with the Iranian government. But the U.S. State Department says Americans outside government should take every opportunity to talk with Iranians.

 
Alberto Fernandez
  
"I wish that the same openness that President Khatami is going to encounter in America would be the right of Iranian citizens in their own country," says Alberto Fernandez, a State Department public diplomacy¹ official. He told VOA-TV's Persian Service that the United States wants to be more open to the Iranian people, including people with whom Washington does not agree.

"We are an open society. We want to welcome more Iranians. We want to see more Iranians visit the United States. We believe that people should be able to speak out freely. Unfortunately, people in Iran can't speak out freely, but Iranians who come to America can speak out freely."

Mr. Khatami was Iran's president from 1997 to 2005. He was widely viewed as a moderate who supported freer news media and political reform. 

Foreign policy experts say the Bush administration is signaling that although it will isolate² hard-liners in Iran such as current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it wants to reach out to reformers.

 
Geoffrey Kemp
  
Geoffrey Kemp is an international security expert at the Nixon Center, a research group in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Kemp told us, "He [Khatami] is the president who called for a dialogue of civilizations. He's the president who in some ways did reach out to us while he was president. Unfortunately, he could never follow through because he didn't have full power."

Kemp says Mr. Khatami remains³ influential⁴ behind the scenes in Tehran and is likely to report back on what he learns about U.S.-Iranian relations.

But the former president's visit may do little to relieve tensions between Washington and Tehran over its nuclear program. The Bush administration says it expects all members of the U.N. Security Council to live up to their agreement to sanction Iran.

Tehran disregarded the council's August 31st deadline to suspend uranium enrichment. China and Russia have said that sanctioning Iran may be counterproductive.

Kemp says if the U.N. Security Council fails to support sanctions against Iran, the next step may be pressure from what he calls a "coalition⁵ of the willing."  "Where the United States, the European Union, and possibly Japan agree to a number of economic measures -- which in the case of the U.S. are already in place, in the case of the others would now be put in place -- and they could be quite serious."

President Bush says the world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insists it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy.

1 diplomacy   

n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕

参考例句：

• The talks have now gone into a stage of quiet diplomacy.会谈现在已经进入了“温和外交”阶段。
• This was done through the skill in diplomacy. 这是通过外交手腕才做到的。

2 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

5 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。