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Iran elects reformist parliamentary speaker

Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Wednesday, May 31, 2000

NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran's parliament has elected a reformist, allied to Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, as parliamentary speaker.

Mehdi Karrubi, 44, a former speaker and former hard-liner, was the sole candidate for the post.

Karrubi won 186 votes from the 252 members of parliament present.

On Monday, the Teheran-based reformist daily Bayan reported that a plot by a presidential bodyguard to assassinate Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami had been foiled by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The plot was discovered several weeks ago, the paper said.

A hard-line politician, Ahmad Tavakoli, told the paper that the elite Revolutionary Guards recently arrested the bodyguard.

No further details about the plot or the bodyguard were available.

The assassination plot follows the shooting in March of Saeed Hajjarian, a close ally of Khatami. Hajjarian was seriously injured in the attack. No arrests were made but hard-liners are suspected of having ordered the shooting.

On Monday night, the Iraq-based opposition Mujahedeen Khalq said an unspecified number of Iranian soldiers and commanders were killed when insurgents rained mortars on the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards' Joint Chiefs of Staff in eastern Tehran. The insurgents said the explosions were followed by street clashes between Mujahedeen Khalq members and Iranian security forces.

But Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said there were no casualties. IRNA reported that several explosions were heard and that police later discovered a mortar launcher in the area.

Wednesday, May 31, 2000


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