Iran’s president thanked his country’s biggest enemy, the United States, for sending help after this weekend’s devastating earthquake, as survivors Tuesday mobbed relief trucks and bulldozers dug trench after trench to fill with the white-shrouded bodies of the dead.
International relief workers said they were shifting their focus from searching for survivors in the flattened city of Bam to helping the injured and homes — and burying the corpses still being pulled from the rubble.
Several hundred relief workers headed home, frustrated over finding so few survivors. The death toll from Friday’s 6.6-magnitude quake that shook Bam rose to 28,000, said the coordinator of U.N. relief operations, Ted Peran. At least 12,000 people were injured, the Health Ministry said, and there were fears the death toll could rise to 40,000.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami vowed to rebuild Bam within two years. The southeastern city — up to 70 percent of which may have been destroyed — was home to 80,000 people before the quake.
Khatami also thanked “anybody who has offered assistance, including the Americans.” But he downplayed talk that Washington’s contribution — among the largest from nearly 30 nations — would thaw the two nations’ frostly relations.
“Humanitarian issues should not be intertwined with deep and chronic political problems,” Khatami told reporters in the provincial capital, Kerman. “If we see change both in tone and behavior of the U.S. administration, then a new situation will develop in our relations.”
Powell's comments
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iran’s willingness to accept American aid was another sign of a possible change in Tehran’s attitude that could point to an eventual improvement in relations. “There are things happening, and therefore we should keep open the possibility of dialogue at an appropriate point in the future,” Powell told The Washington Post.
Since the quake, the United States has sent at least eight Air Force C-130 cargo planes to Iran carrying 150,000 pounds of relief supplies, including blankets, medical supplies and water.
The aid comes even though Iran and the United States severed diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and President Bush has branded the country as part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea.
Powell pointed to the acceptance of aid, as well as Iran’s agreement to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities and its overtures to moderate Arab governments, as hopeful signs.
“All of those things taken together show, it seems to me, a new attitude in Iran in dealing with these issues — not one of total, open generosity, said Powell. “But they realize that the world is watching and the world is prepared to take action.”
At the State Department, spokesman Adam Ereli acknowledged that there had been some positive movement recently, including the dispatch of U.S. earthquake relief to Iran. But, he said, American concerns about Iran’s weapons and its role in support of Islamic militants in the Middle East remain a serious concern.
“Iran’s follow through on its commitments is critical,” Ereli said, alluding to that country’s recent pledge to allow surprise international inspections of its nuclear facilities.
On Saturday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gave assurances of disaster assistance by telephone to Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. Zarif called Armitage back a few minutes later to accept the offer.
Khatami spoke to reporters after holding an emergency Cabinet meeting convened to discuss rebuilding Bam, best known as the site of the world’s largest medieval mud fortress, which crumbled in the quake.
“Bam must be put back on the map of Iran,” Khatami was quoted as saying by Iranian TV. “We hope that the city will be reconstructed over the next one to two years.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledged $126,000 for rebuilding Bam’s shattered homes, Iranian TV reported.