Event stirs talk of return of moderate Iranian leader

TEHRAN, Iran — Former President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate under pressure by political allies to challenge President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in elections next year, held a high-profile event here Monday that many saw as a possible first step in his return to the political arena.

The event drew several former Western leaders, the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that so many had attended a conference not sponsored by the Iranian government.

Khatami has hinted he may run for president but has not officially announced.

On Monday, he dismissed the suggestion the meeting had any connection to electoral politics, saying the conference, "Religion in the Modern World," had been scheduled two years earlier, the news agency ISNA reported.

But the high-level participants — including the former U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan; the former Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi; the former Irish president, Mary Robinson; and the former president of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio — showed Khatami's popularity in the West.

Ahmadinejad, by contrast, has isolated Iran with his hostile words. He now faces serious domestic challenges because of a weak economy.

A strike in Iran's traditional bazaars, including the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, continued Monday in protest of a new sales tax.

Khatami, president from 1997 to 2005, recently criticized Ahmadinejad's political and economic performance.

A former speaker of Iran's parliament, Mehdi Karoubi, also a moderate, said Monday he would run in the presidential election, set for June.