At Summit Meeting, Iran Has a Message for the World

At the entrance to the convention hall where Iran is sponsoring an international summit meeting are the crumpled wreckage of three cars driven by Iranian nuclear scientists who have been killed or hurt in bomb attacks. Placards with the photos of the scientists and their children stand alongside.

 The message is clear. As Iran plays host to the biggest international conference the Islamic republic has organized in its 33-year history, it wants to tell its side of the long standoff with the Western powers, which are increasingly convinced that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Tehran, which denies that it is after the bomb, believes the scientists were killed by Israeli agents, an assertion that Israel has not acknowledged but never fully disputed.

The meeting of the so-called Nonaligned Movement, a group formed during the cold war that considers itself independent of the major powers, has so far proven to be something of a public relations success for Iran.

Last week, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, decided to attend despite pressure from the United States and Israel. Egypt’s new president also said he would come to the conference, although his country has long been estranged from Iran, and India’s prime minister plans to bring a delegation of 250 people in an attempt to advocate for more trade with Tehran.

The announcements were seen as setbacks for efforts by the United States to isolate Iran and cripple it with sanctions.

“Two-thirds of the world’s nations are here in Tehran,” Mohammad Khazaee, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters on Sunday. “Clearly this conference will be effective for us.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, opened the meeting’s early sessions on Sunday with a plea for the 120 countries in the movement to oppose the sanctions imposed on his country, and he asked them to stand against terrorism, saying Iran is the biggest victim of terrorist attacks in the world. An exhibition in the convention hall echoed his assertions, including pictures of victims of what Iran said were opposition bombings in the 1980s, soon after the Islamic Revolution, and of the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a missile fired from a United States Navy ship in 1988, in what American officials say was an accident.

He also said the United States had “exploited” the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to further its “hegemonic goals.”

Given that history, Iran says it has decided not to take any chances and has launched a comprehensive security operation. More than 110,000 security forces are controlling the streets, the deputy national police commander, Ahmad Radan, told the Fars news agency over the weekend.

They are supported by 30 helicopters and nearly 3,000 patrol cars. There are roadblocks on all highways leading into Tehran, and at night there are checkpoints throughout the city.

“Despite the evil intentions of our enemies, our secret service has taken all necessary measures in order to hold the nonaligned meeting in an absolute secure environment,” Iran’s minister of intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, told state news agency IRNA.

But the tight security might have another goal: to ensure Iran’s narrative is not spoiled by its domestic political difficulties, three years after the country was convulsed by antigovernment protests that followed a disputed election and were quashed in a harsh crackdown.

Foreign-based opposition Web sites called for renewed rallies against the government during the summit meeting.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to address the conference this week. And in an effort to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful, Iran is offering special tours of some of its nuclear sites.

Like most countries given a chance at worldwide exposure — witness London’s Olympics — Iran is taking other steps to present its best face.

An army of gardeners and street cleaners have been sprucing up main thoroughfares. One billboard reads: “Nonaligned Movement represents the struggle against racism, colonialism, hegemony and foreign oppression.” Floating above the city’s main Haft-e Tir square was a balloon carrying a message: “Iran, a peaceful and kind nation.”

The government even took the unusual step of subsidizing trips out of town for Tehran residents, to clear the city’s always-congested roads. Despite the economic pain of recent sanctions, the government offered those with fuel-subsidy cards an extra 30 liters of gasoline at reduced rates so they could leave the city. Tehran’s 12 million residents will also enjoy a five-day official holiday starting Tuesday, when the leaders begin gathering.

State television has presented the meeting as a “turning point,” after which Iran’s importance will grow.

The vice president for international affairs, Ali Sa’idloo, told state television that “Zionist” media had been censoring news about the event because it was too positive.

Many Iranians said they were impressed with the fresh paint jobs on buildings. But in an indication of the country’s economic setbacks, some said they wished they had not been given five days off.

“I need money, so I need to work, but now we must stay home,” said Ali Kamali, a bookbinder.

For Iran’s most hard-line officials, such suggestions were unrealistic. They hailed the summit meeting as a sign that the end of Western dominance was near.

“Electing Iran as leader of the Nonaligned Movement shows that a global resistance against America and the Zionists has taken shape,” Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of a paramilitary group, told the semiofficial Fars news agency. “America better give up, as this is yet another sign of its collapse.”

It is clear that the conference is helping Iran gets its message out.