Letter, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski to Günter Mittag

A. Schalck [Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski]

Berlin, 10 October 1986

Member of the Politburo

and Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED

Comrade Günter M i t t a g

Dear Comrade Mittag!

In the context of the upcoming visit by the Iranian Prime Minister, I want to inform as follows:

Already in 1985 there had been contacts at the level of Foreign Ministers from both countries in order to facilitate a visit by the strong man of Iran, the Speaker of the Parliament Rafsanjani.

There were too high demands raised by the Iranian side, and as a consequence the visit did not materialize. The Iranian thinking is that first a visit by the Prime Minister, and then a meeting of both Foreign Ministers have to occur - and a visit by Rafsanjani to the GDR only after that. It is playing a role here that Prime Minister [Mir-Hossein] Mousavi had already planned to visit the GDR one and a half years ago at the occasion of an Europe visit swing. However, the latter did not materialize because he got disinvited on short notice.

The current visit is based on Politburo decision 02-533/24/86 from 30 September 1986. It is said it was based on request by Oskar Fischer, Hermann Axen, and Günter Sieber.

It is intended to use the visit also for raising basic questions on economic relations.

For that purpose, there is an event in the program to discuss this issue on Tuesday, 14 October 1986, between 8:30 and 10:00 to address the subject of economic relations with the following line-up:

The sector itself^[1] is in charge of the following export deals, as confirmed by the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade Erich Honecker:

- Re-export of 40,000 rocket launchers, country of origin Czechoslovakia, over a value of 44 million U.S. Dollar purchased by convertible currency.

- 50,000 AKM^[2] and 55 million rounds of ammunition in context of the trade agreement paid by oil over a value of 11 million U.S. Dollar.

The export treaty on the latter has been finalized, however with a ratification clause. Iran is demanding excessive oil prices. This issue is supposed to be raised in negotiations.

I will submit to Comrade Wyschofsky an according information as a guideline for conducting these negotiations.

Furthermore, the sector is involved in truck exports to Iran. Currently there do exist significant problems because of complaints from the Iranian side for already delivered spare parts. Despite of negotiations held at the level of the General Director of our [Truck] Combine, and [our] foreign trade businesses involved, last week in Tehran no agreement could have been reached. Iran is threatening to withdraw bank guarantees. This issue as well has to be raised during the negotiations.

With communist greetings,

[handwritten] Alexander Schalck