Iran lifts CNN ban after nuclear apology

Iran lifted its ban on CNN today, a day after the government had barred the US television network from the country because of its mistranslation of nuclear comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported.

Ahmadinejad ordered the reversal “due to the expression of an apology” from CNN over the mistranslation, the state-run TV broadcast said.

Iran imposed the ban yesterday after CNN misquoted the president as speaking of “nuclear weapons” when he actually referred to “nuclear technology”. CNN admitted the mistake in a broadcast.

Hard-liners called the mistranslation a “deliberate” act by CNN to misrepresent Iran’s position at a crucial moment in international negotiations. The move highlighted the continuing tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Jomhuri-e-Eslami newspaper said today that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was a “CIA and Mossad agent with a bad record” who should be barred from Iran.

In the Kayhan newspaper, the prominent hard-liner Hossein Shariatmadari wrote that the chances of the mistranslation having been an accident were “close to nil”.

“The distortion was deliberate with the aim of preventing the impact of president’s comments on the public opinion,” wrote Shariatmadari, who is chief editor of Kayhan and close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But the president emphasised CNN’s apology in a letter to culture minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi.

“Although the open distortion of comments by this channel is against the mission of … the media in protecting the right of nations to be informed of various opinions and events, given its apology the channel should be authorised to resume its activities,” the president is quoted as saying in the letter.

In its apology, Atlanta-based CNN said it had “quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that Iran has the right to build nuclear weapons".

“In fact, he said that Iran has the right to nuclear energy. He added that ’a nation that has civilisation does not need nuclear weapons and our nation does not need them.’

“CNN has clarified what the Iranian president said and apologised here on the air to the Iranians directly,” the newscaster said.

Culture ministry official Ali Reza Shiravi confirmed that the ban had been lifted completely.

“CNN can resume its activities as of today,” Shiravi said.