Iranian Ruler Delays Inauguration Further

Iran’s highest religious and political authority said Monday that reformist President Mohammad Khatami cannot be sworn in for a second term until parliament agrees to place hard-liners on a key panel that oversees constitutional issues.

The liberal-dominated Majlis, or parliament, rejected most of the conservative judiciary’s hard-line nominees over the weekend, prompting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to delay Khatami’s inauguration.

Although Khamenei has already confirmed Khatami for a second four-year term, the delayed ceremony means that Khatami cannot appoint a new Cabinet until the latest dispute between the judiciary and the parliament is resolved.

The parliament has refused to accept the judiciary’s nominations for the last two vacancies--both lawyers--on the 12-member Guardian Council, which, through its veto of legislation, provides hard-liners with a powerful weapon against reform. In recent months, the council has rejected all pro-reform bills approved by the parliament.

Khamenei said in a letter that Khatami cannot be sworn in until the parliament accepts the judiciary’s nominees, state-run media reported.

He was responding to a report presented by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who earlier Monday chaired a 3 1/2-hour meeting of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that arbitrates between the parliament and the judiciary.

It was not immediately clear if the judiciary was expected to renominate candidates already rejected by the parliament or propose new names.

Meanwhile, reformist lawmaker Ali Reza Nouri said Khatami’s close ally and the deputy minister of cooperation, Mohammad Salamati, was stabbed and seriously injured Monday evening. The attackers’ identities were not known, Nouri said.

Khatami’s term began Thursday. He was reelected June 8 by a landslide.