Ahmadinejad defends election victory amid rival's protest

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by Mehdi Bagheri

TEHRAN, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended his re-election in the country's "most glorious" presidential election on Sunday, but his major challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi demanded the election result to be annulled.

"The most glorious election was held in Iran on Friday... In Iran, the people decide whom they would vote for," Ahmadinejad told a press conference on Sunday, his first since the government announced his re-election in an overwhelming victory.

In an address to thousands of his supporters in Tehran's Vali-e-Asr Square to celebrate his victory on Sunday, Ahmadinejad said "Iran's election is a real and free election" and that the "great people" of Iran chose the one whose policies they trust much.

Ahmadinejad defended his foreign policies especially his policies over the nuclear issue, saying Iran's nuclear issue belonged to the past, signaling that there would be no change in his second term.

"Iran's nuclear issue belongs to the past ... Now we want a global disarmament of nuclear weapons," he said, adding that, "We express our readiness to participate in and to manage (the issue)."

Ahmadinejad highlighted the increasing clout of his country and ruled out the possibility of any threat.

Humiliating such claims of the United States and Israel's military option on Iran's nuclear sites, he said, "these are just propaganda. No power dares to threaten Iran. Iran will make any attacker regret it. There is no possibility that one does such a stupidity."

Asked about the arrests of some reformists and reporters after the announcement of the election result, Iran's president-elect compared the unrest on the streets by his rival camp to the riots after football matches, saying "all the people are equal before the law."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends his first news conference after the presidential elections in Tehran, June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the latest presidential election in which he was  re-elected was the "most glorious" and a "free" one.  (Xinhua/Ahmad Halabisaz)