Iran's Leader Says Reforms Have Stalled
ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president admitted Tuesday that his program of democratic reforms has largely failed, but said he will not break his promise to voters to promote democracy and freedoms.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami made the remarks amid continuing attempts by ruling hard-line clerics to undermine his reform agenda and deepening public discontent over the country's slow pace toward democratic change.
"Lately, speaking for me has become difficult because I feel many of the ideas and programs I sincerely offered and the people voted for have not materialized," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.
Last month, Khatami said he would resign if Iranians - dissatisfied over his failure to deliver promised reforms - want him to.
"Perhaps part of the population, especially the youth, who want quick realization of their demands, have become disappointed," he was quoted as telling the National Congress of Non-Government Youth Organizations in Tehran.
In June, thousands of Iranians held a week of nightly protests, railing not only against their usual targets - Iran's unelected hard-liners who control key institutions - but also against Khatami for failing to introduce greater political, social and economic freedoms.
Khatami, however, said he still had some hopes for success.
"A ray of hope still exists. Considering the circumstances (in the country) I believe there is no way other than continuing the path we have begun. With patience and wisdom, hopefully we will succeed," IRNA quoted him as saying.
Khatami's hopes for a compromise with hard-liners have been thwarted in recent weeks after the Guardian Council, which vets all parliamentary legislation, rejected two key reform bills presented by the president.
Those bills would have given greater powers to Khatami to stop constitutional violations by his hard-line opponents and would have barred the Guardian Council from arbitrarily disqualifying candidates in legislative and presidential elections.
The soft-spoken president has said the closure of more than 90 pro-democracy publications in the past three years, the arrests of dozens of prominent intellectuals and writers and the holding of closed trials without jury violated the constitution. Hard-liners have ignored his warnings.
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