Iran's Khamanei defends president, demands halt to election protests

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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"I am urging them to end street protests, otherwise they will be responsible for its consequences, and consequences of any chaos," Khamenei said in his first address to the nation since the protests broke out.     

He denied any possibility that the poll a week ago had been rigged, as Ahmadinejad's opponents have asserted. 

"The result of the election comes from the ballot box, not from the street," he told tens of thousands of worshippers who had gathered in and around Tehran University for Friday prayers.

Khamenei praised Iranians for taking part in the election and called it "a magnificent show of responsibility of the people to determine the fate of their own country." 

He said Iran's enemies were targeting the legitimacy of the Islamic establishment by disputing the outcome of the election.   

The supreme leader added his views on foreign and domestic policy were closer to those of Ahmadinejad than to those of the hardline president's foes.

Khamenei, Iran's ultimate authority, has already approved the election results that gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory, and urged his compatriots to unite behind the hardline president.

Ahmadinejad was among those who streamed into Tehran University to hear Khamenei's Friday prayer sermon. A number of members of the crowd arrived draped in Iranian flags and carried pictures of Ahmadinejad, as others held sheets of paper with anti-Western slogans.    

"Don't let the history of Iran be written with the pen of foreigners," Reuters quoted one flyer, which reflected official Iranian anger at international criticism of the post-election violence, as saying.

CONDEMNATION OF "FOREIGN POWERS"

Khamanei also condemned Friday what he said was interference by "some foreign powers" in this month's election in the country.

"After street protests, some foreign powers ... started to interfere in Iran's state matters by questioning the result of the vote. They do not know the Iranian nation. I strongly condemn such interference," Khamenei said.

"American officials' remarks about human rights and limitations on people are not acceptable because they have no idea about human rights after what they have done in Afghanistan and Iran and other parts of the world. We do not need advice over human rights from them," he added.

Khamenei's speech followed a sixth day of protests by Mousavi supporters. On Thursday, tens of thousands, wearing black and carrying candles, marched to mourn those killed in earlier mass rallies.

The largest and most widespread demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, which is also caught up in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.

Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people have been killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13. Scores of reformists have been arrested and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.