While Iran has been eager to appear cooperative in the war on terrorism and there are indications that it may be willing to extradite those in its custody, it appears highly unlikely they would be handed over directly to the United States.
'Axis of Evil'
Decades-old animosity with Washington, aggravated by President Bush's labeling Iran a member of an "axis of evil," has left Tehran reluctant to do any favors for the U.S. The hard-line Khamenei has refused to allow militants to be turned over to the United States, the senior Iranian official said. Reformists in the government, however, hope that cooperation over Al Qaeda can ease tensions with the West on a range of issues.
Further complicating any discussion of extraditions, the senior official said, is that the militants' countries of origin are hesitant to accept them.
"Say we return Abu Ghaith to Kuwait," said the official. "It could spark a revolution. Half of Kuwait listens to his tapes in the car, but the Kuwaitis would either have to execute him or turn him over to the U.S. It's awkward."
Kuwait has revoked Abu Ghaith's citizenship. Diplomats said Al Qaeda -- and Abu Ghaith in particular -- were among the subjects discussed when Kuwait's information minister visited Iran last month.
Iran has also had high-level contacts with Saudi Arabia recently. The head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, traveled to Saudi Arabia this month; during the visit, unprecedented for an Iranian judiciary chief, Shahroudi met with nearly all of the kingdom's leadership, diplomats said.
And the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, visited Tehran last month, diplomats said, to talk about Iran's Al Qaeda detainees, particularly any Saudis among them.
According to the senior Iranian official, optimism for a deal with Western governments was running high this spring, particularly before a suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, in May that killed nearly three dozen people and was blamed on Al Qaeda. Iranian hope for such a deal was bolstered when the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq rounded up and disarmed Moujahedeen Khalq members.
Iran's first step in any deal would have been to tell the West the identity of those it was holding; the hope on both sides was that this might have led to more substantive cooperation. The plan was scuppered at the last minute by a dispute among Iran's divided political factions over the terms of the bargain, the official said.
