President Hassan Rohani said in reference to the house arrest of Iranian opposition leaders that repeatedly raising the issue does not help his administration’s efforts to end the situation.
At a press conference on Saturday August 29, Rohani spoke of his campaign promise to end the house arrest of MirHosein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi, the leaders of the Green Movement.
Rohani said: “To turn this issue into a permanent issue for the country does not benefit anyone. We must simply try to make sure everything is run by rule of law.”
The three opposition leaders have been under house arrest since 2011 without ever being charged under the law or brought to trial.
“The strength of a government is in its ability to finalize its issues of concern like the nuclear issue,” Rohani said.
He added, however: “Some issues are not under the jurisdiction of the administration; the government can only try to facilitate the matter by providing the preliminaries and the right conditions.”
“It is not necessary to announce every detail; fruit need not be picked before it is ripened. There are many important issues at stake in the country,” Rohani said.
There had been much hope that the house arrest of the opposition leaders would be brought to an end by the Rohani administration; however, resistance from conservative elements in the establishment has dashed those hopes as the Rohani administration has moved into its third year in power.
