Iran's supreme leader rejects politicization of clergy assembly

Tehran - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday rejected the alleged politicization of the Assembly of Experts, the country's highest religious body, state television reported. Khameni described some foreign and local press reports concerning the election of Iranian ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani as head of the assembly on Tuesday as 'hostile propaganda' which tried to depict the development as a 'power struggle' between Iran's political factions. 'But this assembly is definitely no venue for such struggles,' Khamenei was quoted as saying in a meeting with the assembly members in Tehran. The election of Hashemi-Rafsanjani was interpreted by several press sources as a defeat for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani is a fierce opponent of Ahmadinejad's policies and is said to head, together with former president Mohammad Khatami, the moderate-reformist faction in next March's presidential elections against the ultraconservative wing close to the president. Although the Assembly of Experts is mainly a religious body, the victory of Rafsanjani over closest rival Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a hardliner and close aide to the president, was regarded by observers as warning signal by the country's clergy elite to Ahmadinejad. Some local reformist papers had on Wednesday termed Rafsanjani's election as a defeat for the country's reigning radical ideology. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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Iran's supreme leader rejects politicization of clergy assembly

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