Khatami urges calm as MPs protest

About 70 deputies are staging a sit-in in parliament

President Mohammad Khatami has appealed for calm in the face of protests over hundreds of reformists being barred from next month's elections in Iran.

The disqualifications were imposed by Iran's Council of Guardians, a powerful conservative religious body.

The reformist-dominated interior ministry says the decision is illegal.

About 70 deputies are staging a sit-in protest at the parliament and Iran's 27 provincial governors have threatened to resign if the ban is not reversed.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Tehran says the move has triggered a major crisis between the entrenched hardline minority and the outraged reformists.

The situation is like a football match in which the referee sends off one team and invites the other side to score Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi Who holds the power? Profile: Mohammad Khatami

On Sunday President Khatami urged his reformist supporters to keep their protests within the law.

The provincial governors, who are responsible for administering the elections in their areas, have said they will resign in a week if what they call the conditions for a free and fair election are not met.

The governors are appointed by the interior ministry which says it will not take account of the disqualifications.

Authority

Mr Khatami is expected to confer with the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Parliamentary Speaker Mehdi Karroubi, to try to defuse the crisis.

It is to Ayatollah Khamenei that all eyes are now turning as this crisis deepens, our correspondent says: only he has the authority to step and adjudicate.

Mr Khatami says he is trying to avert a crisis

The 12-member Council of Guardians, made up of six clerics and six Islamic lawyers, is empowered to ensure parliament's actions comply with Islamic principles.

It is expected that the council would requalify a number of the blocked candidates on appeal, our correspondent adds.

Council spokesman Mohammad Jahromi said 2,033 of the 8,200 candidates had been barred but MPs said the figure was higher.

MP Reza Yousefian said more than 80 of 290 MPs had been banned from re-election.

Iran's parliament is dominated by the reformists who have won all major national elections since 1997.