Tehran - Iran's parliament yesterday delivered a sharp rebuke to President Mohammad Khatami's drive for greater political openness, forcing out his influential interior minister in a vote of no-confidence.
The conservative-dominated Majlis voted by 137 to 117, with 11 abstentions, against Mr Abdollah Nouri, saying what it called an unacceptable rise in social and political tensions was caused by his reforms.
Mr Nouri's critics took the rostrum before the vote to criticise him for allowing public rallies by opposition student groups, replacing old-line officials at the Interior Ministry and taking sides in increasingly public discord between rival factions.