Ahmadinejad raising hackles

TEHRAN (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday cut short a planned two-day visit to Armenia, officials there said, as the hard-line leader faced growing unhappiness at home over the resignation of Iran’s top nuclear negotiator.

The sudden replacement of negotiator Ali Larijani fueled already increasing complaints — even from conservatives who were once his supporters — that the fire-brand president was mismanaging Iran’s most vital issues, particularly the confrontation with the West over the nuclear program.

Beyond the suddenness of Mr. Larijani’s weekend departure, the choice for his replacement, Saeed Jalili, also came as a surprise. Mr. Jalili was a little-known deputy foreign minister, noted mainly for his loyalty to Mr. Ahmadinejad.

In a sign the displeasure may reach high levels in Iran’s clerical establishment, a foreign policy adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, complained about the surprise change, which occurred just ahead of key talks yesterday with the European Union.

“It was definitely better if this did not happen in the [current] important and sensitive situation when the nuclear issue is on the table,” the adviser, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial news agency ISNA.

Mr. Jalili met yesterday in Rome with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and Mr. Larijani attended to help the transition. Mr. Solana said the talks were “constructive” and more were planned by the end of November.

Before Mr. Larijani resigned, an EU official told the Associated Press the Rome meeting would focus on Tehran’s refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands for a freeze on uranium enrichment.

The resignation has been widely interpreted as a victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad, enabling him to impose a tougher line in nuclear negotiations. Though a conservative, Mr. Larijani was considered more moderate than Mr. Ahmadinejad within Iran’s hard-line camp and had reportedly differed with the president on how to approach nuclear talks.

But the replacement could hurt Mr. Ahmadinejad by further reducing his support within the Iranian political establishment.

Many at home, including conservatives, complain he has failed to improve Iran’s economy and unnecessarily worsened the standoff with the West.

While the discontent may not damage him immediately, “in the long run, it matters because incompetence may bring down Ahmadinejad,” said Vali Nasr, an Iran specialist at Tufts University.

It was not known whether the interruption of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Armenia was linked to the controversy.

But during his absence Monday, complaints over Mr. Larijani’s replacement mounted and 183 mostly conservative lawmakers passed a measure praising Mr. Larijani’s performance.