Tehran: Iran's opposition leader on Friday pledged to remain defiant in the face of new threats and said he would sacrifice his life in defence of the people's right to protest peacefully against the government.
Mir Hussain Mousavi's remarks come after the worst unrest since the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election.
At least eight people died during protests on Sunday, including Mousavi's nephew.
Mousavi said he was "ready for martyrdom" and lashed out at the bloody crackdown.
He said the government was making more mistakes by resorting to violence and killings, and that it must accept the people's rights to hold peaceful demonstrations.
Calls for execution
Iranian hardliners have called for the execution of Mousavi and other opposition figures, while a previously unknown group claimed in an online posting that suicide squads were ready to assassinate opposition leaders should the judiciary fail to punish them within a week. Iran's prosecutor on Thursday warned opposition leaders could be put on trial if they don't denounce last week's protests
Mousavi rejected charges that he and his supporters were "lackeys" of Iran's Western foes.
"We are neither Americans nor Britons. We have sent no congratulation cards to the leaders of major powers," he said, in allusion to a card the Iranian president sent to Barack Obama on his election as US president.
The fourth candidate in the June election — former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezai — hailed Mousavi's comments as a basis for a compromise, and wrote to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asking him to intervene.
‘Retreat'
"Mousavi's retreat from rejection of [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's government and his constructive proposal that parliament and the judiciary act based on their legal duty to make the government accountable ... was late but can be a new start to unite the protesters with the rest," the Isna news agency quoted Rezai as saying in the letter.
But hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami slammed Mousavi's statement. "There is no crisis in the country and you are creating a crisis. Stop it!" Isna quoted him as saying.
Report: Opposition leader ‘still in Tehran'
The website of Mir Hussain Mousavi on Friday denied state media reports that the Iranian opposition leader had fled the capital Tehran for the northern province of Mazandaran.
"Mousavi is at his own home in one of the side-alleys of Pasteur Avenue (in south Tehran) like before and has not left Tehran at all in the past few days," his Kaleme.org website said.
On Thursday, Iran's official IRNA news agency reiterated its report that Mousavi had fled the capital in the face of the government's crackdown on his supporters.
