By Zahra Hosseinian and Hossein Jaseb
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities pursued a security crackdown on Wednesday to suppress any more unrest over a disputed presidential election, although reformist clerics have called for national mourning for protesters killed earlier.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
Defiant cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) again echoed from Tehran rooftops at dusk on Tuesday.
But riot police and Basij militia appeared to have largely quelled mass protests against the June 12 poll, which reformists say was rigged to return President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and keep out moderate former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said he had "no plans" to attend a G8 meeting in Italy this week on Afghanistan.
His decision, announced a day after U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "appalled and outraged" by the clampdown in Iran, was more evidence of rising tension with the West.
Western diplomats had seen the June 25-27 event as a rare chance for Group of Eight nations to discuss with regional powers such as Iran shared goals for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iran has accused the United States and Britain of fomenting post-election unrest and has paraded detained protesters on state television confessing that Western media had incited them.
Italy said on Tuesday it would seek consensus from G8 ministers on some form of condemnation of an Iranian crackdown on protesters and the expulsion of journalists.
At least 10 protesters were killed in the worst violence on Saturday, and about seven more early last week. Many of the deaths have been filmed by fellow demonstrators, posted on the Internet and viewed by thousands around the world.
NATIONAL MOURNING
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a dissident who is one of Iran's most senior clerics, called for three days of national mourning from Wednesday for those killed.
"Resisting the people's demand is religiously prohibited," Montazeri said in a statement on his website.
Montazeri was once named successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but fell out with the founder of the Islamic Republic shortly before his death in 1989. Montazeri has been under house arrest in the holy city of Qom for around a decade.
Reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi, who came last in the election, also signalled opposition would continue, calling on Iranians to hold ceremonies on Thursday to mourn the dead.
The Foreign Ministry accused U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of interfering in Iran's affairs "under the influence of some powers," an apparent dig at Britain and the United States.
Tehran's hardline leadership is locked in a dispute with Western powers over its nuclear programme, which it says is only for electricity, but which the West suspects is for bomb-making.
Obama described accusations that his country was instigating the protests in Iran as "patently false and absurd."
"This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won't work any more in Iran," he said.
Security forces have arrested 25 employees of Kalameh-y e Sabz, a newspaper whose managing director is Mousavi, the Sarmayeh daily reported. It quoted Alireza Beheshti, an editorial board member, as saying the arrests on Monday had been on the orders of hardline Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi.
Police in the southeastern province of Kerman said they had arrested 137 "rioters" on June 15 for involvement in post-election unrest, the state news agency IRNA reported.
Hardline newspapers carried articles on Wednesday blaming Mousavi for the violence. One of them, Vatan-e Emrouz, quoted what it said was the father of one of those killed.
"The one responsible for my child's blood is Mirhossein Mousavi and I will follow up this issue until I get my right," it quoted him as saying, giving the victim's surname as Ghanian.
Mousavi has denied his supporters are involved in violence.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls the levers of power in Iran, has accepted a request from the Guardian Council, which must ratify the election result, to allow five more days for candidates to lodge complaints.
The 12-man council has already rejected demands for a vote re-run from Mousavi, who says he is the rightful victor.
Conservative candidate Mohsen Rezaie, who came third in the poll, said he had withdrawn his complaints, citing Iran's sensitive political and security conditions, IRNA reported.
Ahmadinejad will be sworn in before parliament some time between July 26 and August 19, the Iran News newspaper said.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Charles Dick)
