Iran’s Ahmadinejad refutes aide’s “soft” comments

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jun. 28 – Hours after an aide to Iran’s president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a German-based Iranian satellite television channel that the new president has no intention of introducing an austere social and cultural policy, Ahmadinejad issued a statement through his office emphasising that only his own statements or those by his office represent his views. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jun. 28 – Hours after an aide to Iran’s president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a German-based Iranian satellite television channel that the new president has no intention of introducing an austere social and cultural policy, Ahmadinejad issued a statement through his office emphasising that only his own statements or those by his office represent his views.

“The official views of the president-elect are only pronounced by himself through this office”, said a statement by the office of the president-elect, carried by government-run news agencies in Tehran.

Remarks by a Mehdi Kalhor, an aide to Ahmadinejad, that there would not be a harsher attitude to female dress code, Persian pop music and satellite television were immediately condemned by the powerful clerics who were behind Ahmadinejad’s election, even though Kalhor’s comments were not reported by news organizations inside Iran.

“Everyone is free to have satellite (television),” Kalhor said.

Satellite television is banned in Islamic Iran and police crack down on dish owners, who are fined and have their receiving equipment confiscated. The authorities also try to jam the signals.