Azerbaijan, Baku, May 25 / Trend , D. Khatinoglu/
"Former President Mohammad Khatami has never insulted ethic groups. This is pre-election provocation against reformists by governmental forces," former advisor and vice president to Khatami Mohammad Ali Abtahi told Trend .
According to unofficial reports, nearly 35 million Azerbaijanis live in Iran (mainly in Eastern and Western Azerbaijan provinces).
The Azerbaijan students of the Tehran University held a protest action in front of the university on May 24. The protestors demanded Iranian ex-President Mohammad Khatami to apologize to the Azerbaijani people, IRNA news agency reported.
The report said Khatami told jokes about Azerbaijani people and insulted them at the video footage spread recently. The Azerbaijani students of the Tehran University sounded slogans - "Until what time will we be insulted?", "Khatami, Khatami, shame on you", "Freedom, democracy and equal rights for everybody" and "Hey people, I am Turk."
Abtahi said this is not first provocation against Khatami. "There were some provocations against Khatami before we withdrew his candidacy for coming presidential elections. For example, ruling coalition (conservatives) filmed statements by some religious leaders against Khatami. The footage about Khatami's insulting Azerbaijanis has been filmed in a secret way and this is a video editing," Abtahi told Trend over telephone from Tehran.
He said currently Khatami supports Mir-Hossein Mousavi from presidential candidates. "Mousavi is Azeri and was born in Khameneh. Conservatives seek to prevent Azeris' support for their native Mousavi by committing provocation against Khatami," Abtahi said.
Abtahi said both Khatami and Mousavi respect Azerbaijanis in Iran and Azerbaijanis support Mousavi as their native candidate.
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