Iran's supreme leader denies political split
TEHRAN, July 30 (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
on Friday dismissed reports of a political rift with President Mohammad
Khatami over the pro-democracy protests earlier this month that ended in
bloodshed.
He said the reformist president had his full support and blamed the
six days of unrest, the worst since the 1979 Islamic revolution, on a US
campaign of propaganda and espionage aimed at undermining the Islamic republic.
"President Khatami has my 100 percent support. His handling of
the events was completely proper," he said, smoothing over the political
battle about the unrest that has seen conservatives charge Khatami as unfit
to govern.
"There are no differences among the leadership," Khamenei
told an audience packed with prominent conservatives during weekly prayers
at Tehran university. Pro-reform leaders were notably absent.
Among the crowd was police chief General Hedayat Lotfian, whose resignation
has been demanded by student leaders after security forces and Islamic
hardliners brutally beat protesters, sparking the riots.
Khamenei insisted the unrest had been the product of an "intense"
media and spying campaign by Iran's arch-enemy, the United States.
Washington "has carried out an intense psychological war against
us, trying to sow dissent among the people and the leadership," Khamenei
said.
"Their agents inside the country have tried to set political factions
against each other," he said.
"They didn't understand that there is no battle between political
factions in Iran," said Khamenei, who as supreme leader is the traditional
guardian of Iran's Islamic revolutionary orthodoxy.
After his sermon Khamenei attended a funeral procession in central Tehran
in honor of 72 soldiers killed in the 1980-1988 war with Iraq whose remains
were recently returned to Iranian authorities.
Khatami supporters have repeatedly lashed out at conservative bastions
such as the police and intelligence ministry after the riots, amid a growing
crackdown on their pro-reform movement.
On Thursday students rejected claims by Iranian officials that only
three people were injured in the unrest, along with one person killed,
claiming 19 people were "seriously wounded" by police.
Witnesses have said police stood idle as members of hardline Islamic
militias took clubs and chains and beat the students, some of whom were
inside the dormitory and not taking part in the protests.
A group of some 300 current and former MPs issued a statement Thursday
condemning the intelligence ministry for its "unconstitutional"
treatment of those arrested in connection with the unrest.
Even Khatami has lashed out at Islamic hardliners, saying their dogmatic
brand of Islam helped fuel the disturbances.
"Should we carry out aggression against those who don't agree with
us? Should we beat people up brutally because they don't see things our
way?" he said in a speech cited Thursday by the official IRNA news
agency.
But earlier in the week he also took pains to stress there was no political
split in the Islamic republic's leadership, insisting such reports were
an "illusion."
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