TEHRAN, June 29 (UPI) -- Both sides in the Iranian political dispute should avoid stirring up emotions and instead seek resolutions through legal means, the supreme leader said.
The violent fallout from the disputed July 12 presidential election in Iran exposed rifts in the Iranian political system, with a modest opposition emerging around former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who suffered a contested defeat at the hands of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said during a commemoration marking the anniversary of the 1981 assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was killed in a spectacular bombing by the dissident People's Mujahedin of Iran, that political disputes in Iran have political solutions.
"Solving issues is possible through legal standards and all elites, activists and political parties from both sides should avoid any agitation of emotions and making flaws in the people's solidarity," he said.
He noted that despite the growing opposition voice in Iran, the nation was a united one where lawlessness was worse than political division.
Khamenei called on supporters of both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi to avoid instigating the conflict, but added Iranian problems are for the Islamic republic to deal with, not American or European powers.
