(AHMADINEJAD, ELECTION, KAROUBI, RESULT, UNREST, SINCE)
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran`s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called off a trip to Libya for an African Union summit on Wednesday that would have given the hardline president another chance to appear at an international forum after his disputed re-election.
Mehdi Karoubi, a reformist cleric who came last in the June 12 poll, said he still rejected the result, which set off Iran`s gravest internal unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"I don`t consider this government legitimate," he said in a statement on his website. "I will continue my fight."
A spokesman at Ahmadinejad`s office said the Libya visit had been canceled. He gave no reason. It would have been the president`s second foray abroad since the election.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi later told state television Ahmadinejad was too busy to go.
In a show of confidence, Ahmadinejad attended a regional summit in Russia four days after the vote, ignoring huge street protests by supporters of losing candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Karoubi, who both say the election was rigged.
The Guardian Council, a supervisory body, on Monday endorsed the election result and dismissed complaints of irregularities, saying a partial recount had shown these were baseless.
Karoubi and Mousavi, a moderate former prime minister, have stuck by their demands for the vote to be annulled, in defiance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has upheld the result and denounced dissenters. Khamenei`s word is final.
"Some visible and invisible forces blocked any change in the executive power," Karoubi complained.
Security forces have crushed street protests, and hardliners have regained the upper hand in the world`s fifth biggest oil exporter, whose nuclear programme has alarmed the West.
Karoubi, a white-bearded cleric who was close to Iran`s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, demanded the release of "thousands" of people arrested during the unrest.
Iran`s police chief, Ismail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, put the number of detainees at 1,032 and said most had since been released.
"Those who are still in detention were referred to the public and revolutionary courts in Tehran," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted him as telling a news conference.
Ahmadi-Moghaddam said 20 "rioters" had been killed during the unrest and more than 500 police had been injured.
"PLANNED SCENARIO" Continued...
Original article
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