Lebanon Hostages Will Be Freed This Year, Iranian Newspaper Says

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  A Tehran newspaper close to Iran’s president said Tuesday that 1990 will be the last year of captivity for eight Americans and other Westerners held hostage in Lebanon. It added that resumption of U.S.-Iranian ties is not a precondition for their release.

In a second editorial, the English-language Tehran Times said that Syrian President Hafez Assad will visit Tehran soon, after an expected trip by his foreign minister, Farouk Shareh. But it denied reports that a trip by the brother of President Hashemi Rafsanjani to the Syrian capital of Damascus last week was related to the hostage question.

In the past, the paper has reflected the thinking of Rafsanjani.

In Beirut on Tuesday, the An Nahar daily saw no signs of any release soon. But it quoted unidentified Lebanese fundamentalist sources as saying that Iran is prepared to tackle the hostage issue.

The sources were quoted as saying there have been no direct contacts between Iran and the United States but that both are scouting for what was described as a mechanism for releasing the hostages. The report did not elaborate.

And in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Commission demanded the immediate release of all hostages worldwide and issued a special appeal to respect the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The resolution adopted by the 43-nation commission censured all hostage takers, “whatever their motives.”