Cultural exchanges aim to ease U.S.-Iran tensions

WASHINGTON – Mitra Kavian, an Iranian painter with dangling earrings and a bold silver necklace, did not know what to expect when she and 13 other Iranian artists landed in the United States on Saturday. She thought the security personnel would go through her suitcase and throw much of her stuff away, damage her artwork and then interrogate her at length.

“What surprised me and affected me was that it was no different than going to Europe,” Kavian, 46, said this week. “I was welcomed just the same – and even more.”

At a time of rising tensions between Tehran and Washington – and after 27 years without diplomatic relations since the Iran hostage crisis – the Bush administration has attempted to break the ice with a series of cultural and artistic exchanges.

The $5 million program began with little fanfare last year, with a series of visits by Iranian medical doctors and researchers and a trip to Iran by the U.S. wrestling team to compete in matches before 3,000 fans. State Department officials said they have received no reports that previous visitors had problems upon returning to Iran, making it easier to recruit Iranian citizens for future visits.

This week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to tour an exhibit of Iranian art here at the Meridian International Center titled “Wishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges,” the first Iranian art exhibit sponsored by the U.S. government. Rice was to meet with the artists and to speak about the administration’s desire to reach out to the Iranian people.

The exchange program is managed by Assistant Secretary of State Dina Habib Powell, and the costs of visits are underwritten by U.S. taxpayers. But nongovernmental groups such as Meridian have organized the trips.

The artists’ visit comes as the Iranian government this week detained a prominent American academic, Haleh Esfandiari, making her the third dual U.S.-Iranian citizen whose passport has been confiscated in recent months in apparent response to the administration’s $75 million program to promote democracy in Iran.

“Whatever problems we may have with the policies of the Iranian government, we don’t want to put a chill in those people-to-people contacts. We think that those are really important,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters this week. “It would be a real shame if these actions by the Iranian government in any way put a crimp in those kind of exchanges.”