TEHRAN, Feb. 7--President Mohammad Khatami said Monday the notion of sacrifice is of great value and has many applications in everyday lives of those who believe in God, hereafter and human values.
Speaking at the National Congress for Greeting Epic-Makers on Sunday, Khatami asserted that sacrifice is a kind of selflessness, but all selflessness should not be regarded as sacrifice, ISNA reported.
"Humans may do without many things but not sacrifice themselves. Sacrifice means giving away to others what one desires more than anyone else. It is beyond selflessness," he noted.
Recalling the unique sacrifices of the members of the household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Khatami said they sacrificed themselves to attain higher values, including the God's compassion.
"True freedom is tantamount to servitude of God. Humans will live better lives under a divine ruling system."
Referring to the propaganda by certain quarters aimed at portraying Islam as a religion against human values, Khatami singled them out as enemies of humanity.
"The more humans fear God, the more they will feel responsible towards other humans," he added.
In another part of his address, the president noted that what is important is that those who have reached the level of sacrifice should not exchange their achievements with small expectations.
Commenting on his government's efforts to improve the quality of life of the epic-makers, he said the government had allocated 396 billion rials for them in 1993 and the figure climbed to 1,200 billion rials in 1997.
"The figure reached 6,187 billion rials in 2004. The number of jobs created for the war disabled by the government was 23,986 in 1997. In 2004 the figure was 61,000," he added.
In unrelated news, Khatami in a message late Sunday condoled Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Afghan nation and government on Thursday's crash of an Afghan passenger plane.
The presidential press office reported that Khatami expressed sorrow over the tragic incident and sympathy for the families of the victims.
The passenger jet with 104 passengers and crew
took off late Thursday from the western Afghan city of Herat bound for the capital, but reportedly went down due to a snowstorm.

TEHRAN, Feb. 7--More than 48 million or 72.2 percent of Iranians are eligible to vote in the ninth presidential election, ISNA reported Monday.
Only in East Azarbaijan province, nearly 80 percent or 2.7 million of the population are qualified voters, followed by Hamedan (78.5 percent), Gilan (78.2 percent) Mazandaran (78 percent) and South Khorasan (76.3 percent).
In the capital almost 8.5 million or 72.4 percent are of voting age.
Senior advisor to the leader, Ali-Akbar Velayati, former head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Ali Larijani, and Mostafa Moin for minister of higher education and close to President Mohammad Khatami, have so far officially announced their candidacy.
There have been conflicting reports on whether or not former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and head of the powerful State Expediency Council will contest the race.
More than 20 million voted or Khatami a landslide victory in 1997. He was reelected for a second term in 2000 with 77 percent of the ballots.

TEHRAN, Feb. 7--Secretary of the Islamic Revolution's Women's Society Azam Taleqani said members of the banned nationalist-religious group and the Iran Freedom Movement have still not decided on endorsing a candidate for the next presidential election.
Decision from the dissident groups would not
come sooner than March, ISNA quoted her as saying.
Taleqani, a former MP and prominent supporter of women's rights, said scientific-based public opinion polls can help political groups make better electoral decisions.
Election surveys conducted by parties often lack reliability and authenticity because questions and answers can be manipulated for party interest, she stressed.
She added that the government should allow impartial bodies such as NGOs to conduct surveys related to elections.

LONDON, Feb. 7--Military action against Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel would be a "mistake," the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana has warned.
"That will complicate enormously the situation. Unilateral action of that nature I don't think will contribute to what is everybody's aim," Solana said.
"I don't think at this point in time that it is worth thinking about that," he was quoted by IRNA as saying.
The warning, expressed in an interview on Britain's ITV network Sunday, came after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for the second time refused to say whether Washington would deter an attempted Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
"I don't think that the United States has at this point of time the wish or the will or the capability to do that," the senior EU official said. Solana underlined once again on Monday that the 25-member European bloc's process of dialogue and engagement with the Islamic Republic will continue.
"We are in a diplomatic engagement with Iran. We will see if we are successful or not. In any case, we think there is no other better line of action than to get engaged diplomatically with a country which is an important country of the region," Solana told an international security conference in Brussels.
"We in the EU are engaged in negotiations with Iran that started from suspension of enrichment activities in order to get an agreement if possible at the end of a period of time.
That suspension could go beyond suspension into objective guarantees that the process of enrichment activities will not go into the construction of nuclear weapons of mass destruction," said the EU foreign policy chief.
He warned that increasing the number of weapons of mass destruction will be "very catastrophic" for the Middle East.
"So efforts have to be made to prevent that happening.
We are trying to do that. We are all engaged in order to try to find a solution."
Solana was addressing a conference on "Protecting People and Infrastructure: Achievements, Failures and Future Tasks." The two-day meeting is the second Annual Worldwide Security Conference organized by the East-West Institute in cooperation with the World Customs Organization.

DUBAI, UAE, Feb. 7-- Iran's new ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Mohammad-Ali Hadi Monday submitted his credentials to President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
In the meeting the two sides exchanged views on bilateral relations in various fields, IRNA reported.
Hadi conveyed warm greetings from President Mohammad Khatami to his UAE counterpart and expressed hope that the Emirates would continue on the path of the its late leader, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan in promoting development and solidarity in the region.
Earlier, the Iranian diplomat had submitted a copy of his credentials to Foreign Minister Rashed Abdullah al-Nuaymi and discussed with him regional issues and avenues to enhance bilateral relations.
The UAE minister hoped that Iran-UAE cooperation would increase during the mission of new envoy.
After arrival Hadi addressed officials of Iranian institutions in Abu Dhabi and said Tehran will do its best to bolster friendly relations with its neighboring states.
Pointing to the multi-billion Iran-UAE trade, he called for efforts to address the interests of both sides.
Hadi served as deputy foreign minister for consular and parliamentary affairs before being appointed to the Persian Gulf emirate.

BERLIN, Feb. 7--A German Middle East scholar here Monday said the United States has no coherent and clear policy to deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
"The Americans have no Iran policy and they are not clear as to what they really want. Do they want a regime change (in Iran) or do they want a political change?" said Johannes Reissner of the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in a talk with IRNA.
"The Americans have to provide clarifications now as to what they want but this is precisely not happening," he added.
Asked if Washington's ambiguous Iran strategy could be a tactic, Reissner responded, "I cannot negotiate with someone, if I hardly even say what I want from him..."
The expert noted that any US military action against
Iran will be "dangerous" and "adventurous", and not a "practical option".