The Iranian opposition is pro-reform rather than anti-Islamic or anti-establishment, Russian experts said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference hosted by RIA Novosti, Radzhab Safarov, director of the Center for Contemporary Iranian Studies said the opposition "is not against the Islamic regime or the Iranian leadership" but was a "pro-reform opposition."
He said Iran had "a high level of democracy," which "enables different political movements to work everywhere, including at the state level."
However, he added, such activity "will always be controlled to prevent disturbances and ensure the citizens' security."
Prof. Vladimir Sazhin, a senior research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, said: "There is no opposition to the Islamic regime as such."
"There is opposition to Ahmadinejad, his team, and his vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran. But there is no hard-line opposition."
He also effectively dismissed talk about "external influence."
"As for external influence... there has been ideological pressure... political propaganda," but "no concrete action," he said.
Supporters of the defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi staged protests in the Iranian capital on Monday - national Student Day. Student Day marks the day three Tehran University students were killed during protests against then U.S. vice-president Richard Nixon's visit to Iran in 1953.
Mousavi supporters threw bottles and stones at the supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a clash broke out.
Ahmadinejad's re-election triggered mass protests by Mousavi's supporters in June. At least 30 people were reported to have been killed and about 1,000 arrested in post-election violence in the capital Tehran and some other cities, in Iran's most severe unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti)
