Former Iranian Prime Minister Ali Amini said today Iranians would not accept a 'leadership council' set up by the ruling clergy to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
'Khomeini is dead for all intents and purposes,' said Amini, head of a Paris-based Iran liberation movement, in a telephone interview with UPI. 'This is a very sensitive moment in Iran, and the Iranian nation cannot accept the continuation of that regime,'
Amini, 77, headed a government of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from 1961 to 1962, when he resigned following a dispute over the shah's arms purchases.
'Travelers from Iran tell me that Khomeini is dying, or incapacitated so much that he can no longer function, that he is dead for all intents and purposes,' Amini said.
He said the regime's 'moves towards succession could not have come had there not been truth in these reports of Khomeini's failing health.'
Other exile sources Sunday reported a leadership council of three 'grand ayatollahs' was set up by the regime after a four-hour meeting attended by President Sayed Ali Khamenei.
But a man in Khomeini's office told UPI Tuesday 'the condition of the Imam is very, very, very, very good.' He said reports that Khomeini was sick were 'lies.'
Tehran Radio said today 81 prisoners on an amnesty list approved by Khomeini were released. It did not say when Khomeini approved the list.
Formation of the leadership council followed by a day a Tehran Radio announcement that Khomeini would have no public engagements until March 4. It gave no hint of his condition.
'Travelers who come from Iran tell me there is a great undercurrent of support for our efforts. We have made a great headway in bringing together various groups of exiles,' Amini.
Amini announced the formation of the Iran Liberation Movement Jan. 19. Its aim, he said, was 'to impose no ideology or partisan belief and be driven by no ambition but securing the freedom and independence of our ravaged people.'
However, the largest leftist Islamic exile group led by Mojahideen Khalq guerrilla leader Massoud Rajavi, also based in Paris, has not joined Amini's group.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, in an interview publishedby Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, said the Mojahideen and exiled ex-president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr in Paris 'now have lost almost all of their power.
'After the latest operations, they have no representatives left in Iran,' he said, referring to a crackdown which led recently to the death of Rajavi's No. 1 man in Iran, Musa Khiabani, and 21 other ranking guerrillas.
