Iran’s supreme leader says opposition lost its credibility after June elections

Iran leader says opposition has lost credibility

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader said the opposition has lost its credibility and the right to participate in politics by not accepting the June presidential elections, state TV reported Thursday.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said those that do not accept the vote of the majority of the people and are trying to turn the elections into a weakness for the country should be disqualified from participating in the Islamic system.

“They have already lost their credibility,” he said, without mentioning any names.

Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, said the postelection turmoil was because certain people wanted to deny the will of the majority.

“Denying the vote of the people and the harming of the system by some individuals” led to the postelection unrest, he said, calling the opposition accusations of fraud “a major crime.”

Speaking to a group of clerics, Khamenei said those who accept the ruling structure of the Islamic republic as based on the constitution would still considered part of the system.

Khamenei said while foreign enemies confront Iran abroad, some people inside the country were providing them with ammunition by repeating their accusations against the system. He urged activists to clarify their relations with “enemies of the state.”

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the election, maintain he won through fraud.

Since then hundreds of thousands poured into the streets in protest causing the country’s most serious crisis over the decades. The security forces crackdown on the protesters left dozens of casualties and hundreds in jail.

In other Iran news, the U.S. denied Tehran’s allegation that Iranian insurgent leader Abdulmalik Rigi was spotted at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan shortly before his capture on Tuesday.

That the U.S. would ever support a militant group like Rigi’s Jundallah is “another false claim in a long list of ridiculous Iranian fabrications,” Pentagon Press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

The Jundallah insurgency, whose declared aim is to achieve equal rights for Iran’s Sunni minority in southeastern Iran, has claimed responsibility for bombing attacks that have killed dozens in recent years.