TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian authorities have denied reports that the former president tried to seize power in the midst of nationwide protests last month, characterizing the claims as a “purely fictional story.”
The Iranian embassy in Paris said on Wednesday that French media reports that former moderate President Hassan Rouhani had assembled influential clerics, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders and figures such as former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were “likely to be based on false information and speculation provided to the author.”
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“This article is a clear example of a coordinated campaign to create and disseminate false and fabricated information aimed at damaging Iran’s image, without any real value or credibility,” he said in a statement published by state media.
The report said President Rouhani’s alleged attempts to overthrow 86-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and rebrand the Islamic Republic failed after Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, refused to support him. Western media reported this week that Larijani had been given expanded powers in preparation for war with the United States.
Presidents Rouhani and Zarif were arrested shortly after thousands of people were killed in anti-regime protests on the night of January 8 and 9, according to French media reports.
The arrest claims were first raised last month by two hardline politicians, including a member of parliament, but were separately denied by Rouhani and Zarif at the time. President Rouhani, who appeared next to reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, also released photos from his funeral showing he had not been arrested.
On Tuesday, President Rouhani’s office condemned reports that he would replace Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been in power for 36 years, branding it “a continuation of psychological operations by American and Israeli sources.”
The former president said in a statement that the report “aims to raise questions and concerns in Iranian public opinion and to fully implement Iranian policy.” [the US and Israel] apply maximum pressure through economic sanctions and military threats; ”
The reformist challenge
In a statement on Wednesday, the Iranian embassy in France also denied any link between the arrests of reformist leaders earlier this month and the power-grabbing plot that was neutralized.
The embassy said the arrests “related only to the issuance of official statements and declarations made during the unrest.”
Some of the reformers have since been released on large bails, but others remain imprisoned because their past political convictions are pending in cases with judicial and intelligence authorities.
The most damning comments by a former official and pro-reform figure after the protest killings came from former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since shortly after the 2009 Green Movement protests. Several political activists have been arrested in connection with helping him publish a statement calling for a peaceful transition from the Islamic Republic and saying “the game is over.”
Former Presidents Khatami and Rouhani have also called for major reforms, and the Iran Reform Front has said that unless the theocracy takes steps to change course, Iran will be forced to disappear.
However, Iran’s supreme leader called the events during the unrest a “coup” carried out in the interests of the United States and Israel.
Student protests resumed in Tehran and several other major cities this week as universities reopened for the first time after nationwide protests in January.
The condemnation of foreign media coverage by Iranian authorities comes amid two other articles that have been publicly rejected in recent days.
The Mojahideen Khalq (MEK), a foreign-based group considered a “terrorist” organization by the Iranian government for launching armed attacks on Iranian soil decades ago, this week claimed to have carried out a major operation against the supreme leader’s stronghold.
The government said in a brief statement that more than 100 militants were killed or arrested and more than 150 others fled after an hours-long gunfight early Monday morning in a compound in Tehran’s Pasteur district, where many government offices are located, with “heavy casualties”.
Some residents reported hearing loud noises that day, and unconfirmed reports say that many schools in the surrounding area were suddenly closed, but there was no evidence to suggest that there was any bloody fighting in the area.
Gholamreza Sanaei Rad, a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards and a deputy in the military’s supreme leader’s political and ideology department, suggested that such a large-scale operation could not be carried out unnoticed in a maximum-security facility in the capital.
“This is just an allegation, and they are doing it to present themselves as an alternative to their masters, who are now leaning towards the pro-monarchy and Pahlavi camp,” he told the state-run Iranian Labor News Agency on Sunday, referring to US support for Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran, who was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“Several mercenaries used PVC tubes to make things that looked like children’s toys and made noise in Tehran in order to continue to profit from their masters,” the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran has blacklisted a number of US politicians for funding the MEK and speaking at ceremonies. The group has little support in Iran, in part because it joined former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the eight-year invasion of Iran in the 1980s.
This week, other Western media reports suggested that Turkiye could launch military operations inside Iran to protect its borders if a war with the United States becomes chaotic and Iranians seek refuge in neighboring countries.
But a statement from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications office, reported by Turkish news outlets and picked up by Iran on Sunday, denied the claim, saying it contained “disinformation.”
“Our country always respects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbors and takes the necessary measures 24/7 to ensure the security of our borders, regardless of crisis or not,” he said.
