Iran gets invitation from Germany

NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iranian President Mohammed Khatami plans to visit Bonn and meet with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Sunday that he accepted an invitation from Schroeder, delivered by German Chancellery Minister Bodo Hombach. "I am confident that a new stage has started in relations between Iran and Germany," Khatami said.

Last month, Khatami visited Rome in the first official trip by an Iranian leader to the West since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Khatami did not specify when he would fly to Berlin, saying it would take place at "an appropriate time."

On Saturday, a high-ranking Iranian army commander was killed while on his way to work. IRNA identified the commander as Brig. Ali Sayyad Shirazi, deputy chief of the joint staff command of the armed forces, and a senior army commander during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq.

The opposition Mujahedeen Khalq claimed responsibility for the killing. A spokesman in Paris said Shirazi responsible for the slaying of hundreds of opposition members.

In contrast, IRNA said Iran's 15,000-member Jewish community completed Passover celebrations on Sunday with prayers in synagogues for the "success and prosperity of the Islamic republic of Iran." The agency quoted a Jewish leader as saying Iranian Jews also prayed for "long life of the leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and establishment of peace and tranquility in the entire globe."