Daily News Channel
Iran’s controversial president defended his government’s relationship with the country’s supreme leader on Friday, disputing charges of a political rift. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to a gathering in Mashad in northern Iran, rejected claims by people who have attempted to cast the relationship between his government and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “as tainted,” according to Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency.
A fundamentalist supporter of Iran’s president urged him Friday to reconsider appointing a controversial confidant to the post of Iran’s top vice president.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent pick for the country’s top vice president continued to draw fire Thursday, with a senior cleric issuing a fatwa against the appointment, a leading reformist newspaper reported Sunday. According to the newspaper — Etemad-e Melli — Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi’s Islamic edict against the selection of Esfandyar Rahim Mashaie is part of a larger fatwa issued Wednesday — the same day the nation’s supreme leader reportedly called on Ahmadinejad to remove Mashaie from the top vice president post
Iran’s supreme leader believes the country’s president should dismiss the top vice president, whose recent appointment has drawn criticism from conservatives, semi-official media reported Wednesday.