Tehran, August 05: The US government has said it considers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the elected president of Iran, following a disputed election in which thousands of Iranians took to the streets.
Speaking on Tuesday, Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, did not say whether Washington regarded the June 12 vote as legitimate.
“This was a decision and a debate ongoing in Iran by Iranians, they were going to choose their leadership … [Ahmadinejad is] the elected leader,” he said.
The statement came just hours before Ahmadinejad was due to be sworn in by parliament, and nearly eight weeks after the election itself.
Results questioned
Barack Obama, the US president, has so far been careful not to make strong comments on the legitimacy of the June 12 vote.
“Neither Mousavi nor I have withdrawn. We will continue to protest and we will never collaborate with this government”
Mehdi Karroubi, presidential election candidate
However, Washington has condemned Tehran for its use of violence against opposition demonstrators who were questioning the veracity of the poll result.
Dozens of people are thought to have been killed and hundreds detained during the unrest.
As Ahmadinejad prepares to be sworn-in once more as Iran’s president, two of the losing election candidates said on Tuesday that they will continue their campaign against the incumbent’s re-election.
“Despite all the hardship, we will continue our path to fight against the result [of the election],” Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, was quoted as saying by Mowjcamp, a reformist website, on Tuesday.
Opposition pledge
Mehdi Karroubi, another candidate, was quoted by the Spanish El Pais newspaper as saying that he will also keep up his protest against the election result.
“Quite honestly, if the authorities had acted in a different way, we would never have had these problems, because the majority of those protesting only did so for that reason.”
Obama and the leaders of France, Britain and Germany have refused to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his re-election.
“In view of the circumstances of the controversial re-election, the chancellor will not, as usual, write the normal letter of congratulation,” a German government spokesman said.
But the Iranian government has insisted that the election was free and fair and has accused Britain and the United States of stoking the post-election demonstrations, a charge those countries have denied.
—Agencies–