Iran: Iran has sent an official protest to the United States over what it called blatant interference in its internal affairs after Washington cheered six nights of pro-democracy demonstrations.
"We sent an official note to the Americans through the Swiss embassy and objected to their actions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday. "Their remarks are a blatant interference in Iran's internal affairs."
But President George W. Bush's view, expressed on Sunday, that the protesters were to be encouraged, received further endorsement yesterday from Mr Richard Perle, an influential adviser to the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
"There may be change in Iran because the regime in Iran is miserably unpopular," Mr Perle told the German Council on Foreign Relations.
"Young Iranians will find better uses for their limited resources than building nuclear power in a country so rich in oil. We can already see signs that Iranians . . . would like to see regime change. They should be encouraged." Post-Saddam Iraq would be an inspiration for those supporting democracy elsewhere in the region, he added. "It isn't going to be dominoes in which reform breaks out everywhere, but I think we will see more reform in the aftermath of Iraq in places like Saudi Arabia, maybe even Egypt," he said.
The Tehran protesters have vented most of their anger on conservative clerics who control key elements of power in Iran, but have also condemned moderate President Mohammad Khatami, accusing him of failing to deliver promised change after six years in office.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said the British government was watching events in Iran closely.
"The current demonstrations appear to reflect frustration at the lack of progress but clearly we believe that constructive dialogue not violent protest is the best way forward," he said.
Britain has been at the forefront of a European Union effort to engage with President Khatami's pro-reform government in recent years. But EU diplomats acknowledge they have little to show for the dialogue and foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg were expected to send a tough message to Tehran that more co-operation was needed, particularly over its nuclear programme. Shots rang out overnight near Tehran University, the focus of the unrest, but witnesses said the atmosphere was much calmer than on previous nights when hardline vigilantes wielding clubs, chains and knives had attacked demonstrators.
While the protests in Tehran appeared to be fizzling out or entering a lull, state media reported smaller demonstrations and clashes in several other cities including Tabriz in the north-west and Shiraz in the south, where one person was killed.
But with no clear leadership or organisation for the protests it was not clear whether the unrest would continue.
"It looks like it may calm down for a bit now. But it won't take much to make it flare up again. We may see this cycle for some time," one Asian diplomat said.
While President Khatami has remained silent on the unrest, his younger brother, a leading reformist deputy, said it was an insult to the Iranian people to say the protests were started from abroad.
A new crackdown would do no good, newspapers quoted Mr Mohammad Reza Khatami as saying. - (Reuters)