Iranian supreme leader rejects calls to release Green Movement leaders

TEHRAN — Three months before presidential elections in Iran, it appears incumbent Hassan Rouhani will not fulfill a key pledge he made before winning office: to free opposition leaders held under house arrest since a 2009 crackdown.

The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected calls for “national reconciliation,” effectively guaranteeing that opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi — leaders of the “Green Movement” protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election — will remain under house arrest.

It was the latest setback to reformists who back the moderate Rouhani, who signed the historic nuclear agreement that improved Iran’s relations with the West, but is facing criticism from conservatives as the economy has failed to improve even as many international sanctions were lifted.

Reformists had proposed the idea of reconciliation as a show of national solidarity in the face of the Trump administration, which has threatened to reconsider the nuclear deal and take a tougher line against the Islamic republic. It was floated by former reformist President Mohammad Khatami in a short statement this month before the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought Iran’s theocracy to power.

But days later, Khamenei, who has the final say in all political matters in Iran, quashed the prospect by dismissing reconciliation as “meaningless” and arguing that Iranians were united.

“Are people not on speaking terms with each other?” Khamenei said in a speech televised nationally last week.