January 4, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 19, 1422

TEHRAN, Jan 3: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has moved to calm the fierce hostility between the pro-reform parliament and the conservatives dominating the judiciary and other key bodies, which he fears could wreck the Islamic regime he heads.

In a speech reported on television late Wednesday, Khamenei stressed “the danger of dissent and discord,” and said the “remedy to the country’s woes lies in unity between the three powers (executive, legislative and judiciary) and preventing them from weakening each other.”

“The weakening of these powers would also weaken the revolution and the system,” he warned.

Iran’s political climate has been stormy ever since Mohammad Khatami was elected president in a surprise victory over an arch-conservative in 1997, pledging to bring greater democracy to the 18-year-old Islamic republic.

It has worsened in the past two years, as the reformists won a landslide in parliamentary elections and Khatami ran successfully for a second term as head of state.

In a series of blows the courts closed down the vast majority of pro-Khatami and pro-reform newspapers and jailed journalists and a number of leading reformists on various charges of acting against the regime.

Attempts by the government and the parliament to push through reforms were meanwhile hampered by the ultra-conservative watchdog Guardians Council which systematically vetoed projected legislation on such matters as the freedom of the press and foreign investment.

Matters worsened towards the end of last year when the courts opened a new front, sweeping aside claims of immunity to prosecute reformist members of parliament for remarks made in the chamber or at political meetings.

They reached a head on December 26 with the arrest and imprisonment of MP Hossein Loghmanian, sentenced in September for insulting the judiciary. Two of his colleagues have also been given prison terms but are still at large.

Khatami, whose authority is strictly limited, was powerless to intervene, but when his brother Mohammad-Reza, as deputy speaker of parliament, called on Khamenei to block court action against deputies he was snubbed.—AFP