TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared yesterday that a disputed election result would stand, despite street protests that Iranian officials say Britain and the United States have incited.
The opposition refused to be bowed, with Mehdi Karoubi, who came last in the June 12 presidential election, calling the new government “illegitimate” and around 200 protesters braving the security crackdown near Parliament.
“About 200 people gathered near the Parliament building to protest against the election result but I do not see any clashes,” a witness told Reuters.
Anti-riot police and militia have largely succeeded in taking back control of the streets this week after the biggest anti-government protests since 1979.
“I had insisted and will insist on implementing the law on the election issue,” said Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran. “Neither the establishment nor the nation will yield to pressure at any cost.” Iran is blaming the discontent on foreign powers.
“Britain, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) were behind the recent unrest in Tehran,” Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. He also accused the US spy agency — CIA — of helping to fund rioters. “Many of the rioters were in contact with America, CIA and the MKO and are being fed by their financial resources,” he said. The MKO (Mujahedeen Khalq Organization) is an exiled Iranian opposition group.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was weighing whether to downgrade ties with Britain after each country expelled two diplomats this week. He also announced he had “no plans” to attend a G-8 meeting in Italy this week on Afghanistan.
His remarks, a day after US President Barack Obama said he was “appalled and outraged” by the clampdown in Iran, provided more evidence of rising tension with the West.
Obama called Iran’s accusations that Washington was stoking unrest “patently false and absurd.” Britain also denies the charge.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, asked if Paris planned to cut ties with Tehran, said it had no such plans but could do so if Iran continued to expel diplomats.
Western diplomats had seen the June 25-27 Group of Eight talks as a rare chance for the G-8 to discuss with regional powers such as Iran shared goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The unexpected upheaval in Iran has also thrown a spanner into Obama’s plans to engage the country in a substantive dialogue over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but which the West suspects is for making bombs.
Security forces have clamped a tight grip on Tehran to prevent more rallies against the June 12 poll, which reformists say was rigged to return President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and keep out moderate former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Up to 20 people have been killed in the protests, according to Iran’s state English-language Press TV. Amateur footage of clashes with security men, and of some of the deaths, has been posted on the Internet and viewed around the world.
Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, demanded the immediate release of people detained since the election — who include 25 employees of her husband’s newspaper — and criticized the presence of armed forces in the streets.
“It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights,” Rahnavard, who actively campaigned with her husband before the election, was quoted as saying.
