Reporting from Beirut — A top advisor to Iran's supreme leader today urged the country's establishment to be more tolerant of dissent, even as military officials stepped up their rhetoric in the latest signs of divisions created by the marred reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad one month ago.
Mohammad Mohammadian, a midranking cleric who heads Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office of university affairs, acknowledged simmering discontent over the vote, which sparked massive protests and a violent crackdown last month.
"We cannot order public opinion to get convinced," Mohammadian said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Certain individuals are suspicious about the election result, and we have to shed light on the realities and respond to their questions."
Providing an unyielding counterpoint, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firoozabadi, the armed forces chief of staff, issued stern warnings against protesters.
"God has chosen us in military uniform to sacrifice our lives against the enemies," he said, according to the Iranian Students News Agency, or ISNA. "Certain individuals and groups imagine that we will back down if they shout slogans against us. We have come to die, and we have proved our determination during the war with Iraq."
As the verbal skirmishes continued, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki responded to a U.S. and European call for talks about Iran's nuclear program, announcing that Tehran was preparing a set of proposals to serve as a basis for such discussions. President Obama said Friday that Iran would have until September to show it was serious about negotiations over its nuclear technology and research program.
"We are drawing up a package comprising our political, security, economic and international concerns," Mottaki said at a news conference, according to the ISNA. "We believe that this package will serve as a good basis for dialogue about regional and global challenges we are grappling with."
Declarations of unease, discontent and anger over the June 12 election and subsequent crackdown against government opponents appeared to be on the rise today.
In the holy city of Qom, Ayatollah Reza Ostadi, a senior member of the hard-line Assn. of Seminary Teachers, announced that he would stop delivering Friday prayers and teaching classes to seminarians because of his "anger at the status quo."
