Khamenei calls for an end to Iran’s election disputes

TEHRAN - Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on all relevant parties Sunday to end disputes over the outcome of the June 12 presidential election.

“I call on both sides not to provoke emotions of the youth, stop putting people against each other and refrain from scratching the nation’s unity,” Khamenei said in a meeting with judiciary officials.

Opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi has rejected the final results alleging wide-spread manipulation in the election and counting process.

Moussavi has accused the interior ministry and the legislative body of Guardian Council to have been involved in the manipulation which led to re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

There are legal ways for settling the dispute and these legal criteria should be pursued,” Khamenei said and once again rejected Moussavi’s call for an independent panel to review the election results.

According to the constitution, the Guardian Council is the sole body in charge for finalizing election results. Moussavi and other opposition figures however say that the council could not act as an impartial body due to it open support for Ahmadinejad.

The Guardian Council Saturday invited Moussavi to join an additional panel to review the election process and even allowed re-count of ten percent of the disputed ballots.

Moussavi however rejected the compromise proposal as in his eyes, also the members of the extra panel were not neutral.

In a letter to the Guardian Council Saturday, Moussavi reiterated his call for annulment and holding new elections as best option to remove peoples doubts.

Also fellow presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi shared Moussavi’s standpoint and said in his party newspaper Etemad Melli (National Trust) that he would only send his representative to an independent panel.

Leader Khamenei and the establishment have however categorically rejected both formation of an independent panel as well as annulment of the results and holding new elections.

Meanwhile, informed sources said that Moussavi might hold a mourning ceremony Sunday in Tehran for commemorating the victims of the recent protest demonstrations against alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential elections.

The ceremony was supposed to be held this afternoon in the Ghoba mosque in central Tehran, the sources said.

It was not yet clear whether the Moussavi camp had a permission for the ceremony and whether Moussavi himself would show up in the mosque.

At least 25 people, including demonstrators and security forces, have been killed in the recent protest demonstrations. So far the interior ministry has prohibited Moussavi to hold any kind of demonstrations and gatherings but the opposition leader insists that according to constitution, the people has the right for peaceful protests.