BEIRUT — A top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader urged the country’s establishment Saturday to be more tolerant of dissent, even as military officials stepped up their rhetoric in the latest signs of divisions created by the marred re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad one month ago.
Mohammad Mohammadian, a mid-ranking 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 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 Saturday to a U.S. and European call for talks about Iran’s nuclear program. He announced that officials were preparing a set of proposals to serve as a basis for such discussions.
President Barack Obama said Friday that Iran would have until September to show it was serious about negotiations on its nuclear program.
“We are drawing up a package comprising our political, security, economic and international concerns,” Mottaki said at a news conference, according to ISNA. “We believe that this package will serve as a good basis for dialogue about regional and global challenges we are grappling with.”
