Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer expressed Germany's...

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer expressed Germany's dismay over the confirmation of a death sentence ordered against a dissident Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari. However, after talks in Berlin with his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharazi, Fischer said he had been encouraged by comments by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, in support of the condemned man. "I passed on to my Iranian colleague our dismay at the confirmation of the death sentence on Hashem Aghajari," Fischer told a joint press conference. Aghajari was convicted of committing blasphemy in a speech in 2002 in which he was critical of Iran's dominant clergy.