May 9, 2004- May 13, 2004

During the previous weeks, there was news of inauguration of a new airport in southern part of Tehran named after the late leader of Islamic Republic- Ayatollah Khomeini.

After early fluctuations occured in the construction because of war and embargos, the Islamic Republic decided to finally begin operating the airport. Two weeks ago, Minister of Road and Transport moved his office to the new airport, to supervise the whole process more closely and accelerate the operations. The inauguration day was scheduled to be Saturday, May 9, 2004.

When the inaguration day came, however, the dominating headlines were "The airport was shut down before the inauguration."
Aftab reported on the first flight, an Emirates' from Dubai which could land but the second one belonging to Iranian Airlines which wasn't allowed to land and had to change the route to Isfahan.

The reason given for the strange event was an official announcement by General Headquarter of Armed Forces. In the report they had protested the Ministry of Road and Transportation for giving the catering and internal administration of the airport to a Turkish company. To protest, the military vehicles occupied the runway and impeded the Iranian airplane to land.

Ahmad Khorram, Minister of Roads and Transport told the FARS news agency:" In such a project all bodies should collaborate. But unfortunately we just face sabotage." Sharq wrote on Sunday, May 10.

What has been the actual story? Sharq daily gave more details:"….The plane could be seen over the airport trying to land but the runway was occupied by the armored vehicles. The officials arrived in the runway and tried to negotiate with armed forces. The pilot announced the situation as emergency. The officials who had tried to compromise the armed forces couldn't do anything, so they went to the Minister's office. Then, the Minister himself went to negotiate but his efforts were fruitless. The plane was ordered to change the route and land in Isfahan. The Minister left the airport."

Iranian armed forces include two divisions: the remainees of Shah's military forces and the after-the-Revolution-established Revolutionary Guards who are the ideological subordinate of the conservatives especially the supreme leader- Ali Khamnei. Although there was no direct hint to Revolutionary Guards to be the key responsible in the story, everybody in the country could guess that this part was the body which occupied the airport and impeded the operation of the airport.

In the history of Islamic Republic, what happened in Imam Khomeini airport on Saturday May 9, is quite unprecedented and it's not strange when some express it as a 'small coup'. According the Constitution, armed forces are prohibited to interfere the politics. Although during the city council election in last winter, there were organized groups of Revolutionary Guards voting for conservatives. They had never taken part in the politics before. The question coming to mind is whether this development is an isolated event or is it the first link in a chain of events yet to come.