TEHRAN: Iran’s incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that the result of the presidential election was a blow to the “oppressive system” ruling the world.

In his first press conference since winning Friday’s vote, he also insisted that Tehran’s nuclear drive was an issue of the past, hinting no change in the country’s nuclear policy.

Ahmadinejad described the election as “clean and healthy,” dismissing complaints by defeated candidates as sour grapes, but his main rival Mir Hossein Mousavi demanded that the vote results be annulled and called on his supporters to continue protests.

In a statement on his website, Mousavi said he had formally asked the Guardian Council, a legislative body, to cancel the election results. “I urge you, Iranian nation, to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way,” he added.

Iranian police again clashed with people yesterday protesting in Tehran against the election results.

About 2,000 students at Tehran University, some carrying Mousavi posters, others covering their faces with bandanas, chanted anti-government slogans and taunted riot police across the road outside.

Some threw stones at police when they chased protesters who had tried to gather outside the university gates. Mousavi supporters earlier chanted his name in central Tehran and threw stones at police, a Reuters witness said.

Police on motorcycles drove through the crowd to disperse the protesters. At least one person, a woman, was injured.

Police briefly detained journalists filming the violence.

At his press conference, Ahmadinejad waved and smiled at the flag-waving partisans thronging the capital’s Vali-e-Asr square to applaud the victory he won by a surprising 63 percent of the vote.

He consigned Iran’s nuclear dispute to the past, signaling no nuclear policy change in his second term, and warned that any country that attacked his own would regret it. “Who dares to attack Iran? Who even dares to think about it?” he asked.

Iran’s refusal to halt nuclear work has sparked talk of possible US or Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites.

France signaled its concern over events in Iran in the strongest public comments yet from a major Western power.

“What is happening in Iran is clearly not good news for anyone, neither for the Iranians nor for peace and stability in the world,” Henri Guaino, one of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s closest advisers, told France’s Europe 1 radio.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said repression of opponents was closing off dialogue. “Brutality and never-ending military development will not bring any solutions,” he said.

“Police have detained more than 100 reformers, including the brother of former President Mohammad Khatami,” a leading reformer said yesterday. A police official confirmed some detentions.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who served as a vice president under Khatami, told Reuters the former president’s brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, was among more than 100 members of Iran’s biggest reformist party, Mosharekat, who were held on Saturday. “There are reports a political party was involved in yesterday’s incidents. Some of them have been arrested,” Iran’s deputy police chief Ahmed Reza Radan was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying. He denied Khatami was among them.

Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, denied reports that her husband had been detained or put under house arrest.

Interior Ministry officials have rejected accusations of election fraud and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, has called on Iranians to back their president.

An aide to Rahnavard, who took an unusual public role in her husband’s election campaign, said she had tried to speak at Tehran University, but had been prevented.

Amnesty International called for the Iranian authorities to immediately investigate the crackdown on demonstrators.

“The shocking scenes of violence meted out by the security forces need to be urgently investigated and those responsible for human rights violations must be brought to justice,” it said.

Yesterday, police fired into the air to break up a demonstration, while about 200 Mousavi supporters shouted slogans and lobbed stones at police who fired back with tear gas.