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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gives his Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University - Source: Reuters -
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Iran's reformist opposition leaders vowed to press on with legal
challenges to an election they say was rigged, although the
hard-line government appeared to have largely crushed mass street
protests.
The unrest has exposed unprecedented rifts within Iran's clerical
establishment, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
normally stays above the political fray, siding strongly with
anti-Western President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The turmoil has also dimmed prospects for President Barack Obama's
outreach to Iran over its nuclear programme, with Tehran blaming
Britain and the United States for fomenting violence.
Obama has ramped up his previously muted criticism, saying he was
appalled and outraged by the post-election crackdown.
Khamenei has upheld the result of the June 12 presidential poll
that returned Ahmadinejad and has warned opposition leaders they
would be responsible for any bloodshed.
About 20 people have been killed in the demonstrations, but police
and militia have flooded Tehran's streets since Saturday, quelling
the majority of protests after the most widespread anti-government
unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"My personal judgment is that this is a country deeply split and
emotionalised," a Western diplomat in the region said. The protests
had shown how dissatisfied some parts of society were with the way
Iran was run - to the chagrin of its leadership.
"I think they are deeply shocked," the diplomat said. The
authorities had managed to impose outward stability, but had paid a
heavy moral price, he added.
Riot police swiftly dispersed a group of about 200 demonstrators
with teargas on Wednesday, but the protest was a far cry from
marches last week that attracted tens of thousands.
Protest cries of Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) were heard from
Tehran rooftops again overnight, although they were much more
short-lived than on previous evenings in the capital.
Opposition leaders unbowed
Opposition leaders remained undaunted, even though they appeared to
have lost the weapon of public protest.
Reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi, who came last in the election,
called the new government illegitimate and the wife of Mirhossein
Mousavi, who says he won the poll, said it was a duty to continue
legal protests to preserve Iranian rights.
Mousavi is backed by influential former President Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, a pragmatist who favours a less combative foreign
policy and who heads a council of clerics which, in theory at
least, has the power to depose Khamenei.
Mousavi supporters said they would release thousands of balloons on
Friday imprinted with the message "Neda you will always remain in
our hearts" - a reference to a young woman killed last week who has
become an icon of the protests.
Mousavi says the election should be annulled but Iran's top
legislative body, the Guardian Council, has ruled this out.
A spokesman for the council, which must approve the poll, said it
had looked into all complaints but found no major fraud or
irregularities, state Press TV reported on Thursday.
The spokesman said the vote was among the healthiest elections ever
held in the country since the revolution.
Press TV said eight of those killed in the post-election unrest
were pro-government militia members.
The United States withdrew invitations to Iranian diplomats to
attend US Independence Day celebrations on July 4.
It was the first time since Washington cut diplomatic ties with
Tehran in 1980 that Iranian diplomats had been invited to the
embassy parties, but the move to withdraw the invites was largely
symbolic as no Iranians had even responded.
"The president's policy of engagement is obviously delayed, but we
are going to have to deal with the government of Iran," Senator
John Kerry, chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, told Reuters.
The best US option for pressuring Iran, the world's fifth biggest
oil producer, was to drive down crude prices by reducing America's
dependence on imported energy, Kerry said.
Mohammad Marandi, who is the head of North American Studies at
Tehran University, said mistrust of the United States and Britain
was rife, partly due to the very negative role of US- and
British-funded Persian-language television stations.
"They are working 24 hours a day spreading rumours and trying to
turn people against each other," he told Reuters.
"In the short term relations will definitely get worse, but in the
long term the US really has to re-think its policy and to recognise
that regime change is not possible in Iran.
EDITORS' NOTE: REUTERS AND OTHER FOREIGN MEDIA ARE SUBJECT TO IRANIAN RESTRICTIONS ON THEIR ABILITY TO REPORT, FILM OR TAKE PICTURES IN TEHRAN.
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