Iran president vows changes as opponents make joint plea

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Tuesday to change his team and show respect for Iran's youth as opposition leaders made a joint plea for the release of hundreds of people held in election protests.

Ahmadinehad insisted his re-election was fair, saying: "This was the most beautiful and cleanest election", but he pledged: "The structure of government should change, the changes in the government will be considerable."

The new government to be installed in a few weeks' time will put "housing, employment and economic reform" on its agenda, he said in a televised address to the Iranian people following his controversial success in the June 12 poll.

"We must respect people's feelings, especially the youth," said Ahmadinejad, whose opponents allege he was only returned to office through vote rigging.

The re-election of the hardline incumbent, who enjoys the backing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparked fraud allegations from two of his rival candidates, ex-prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and reformist Mehdi Karroubi.

The two challengers brandished their continuing defiance on Tuesday in a joint statement with former president Mohammad Khatami.

"The useless wave of arrests should end immediately and those who are being detained without even committing the slightest sin should be released," they said in the declaration released via Mousavi's campaign website, Ghalamnews.

The opposition leaders also denounced what they called "brutal attacks" on "innocent people, student dormitories and residential houses" by Iranian security forces.

"The atmosphere where security forces continue to be deployed must end, as it only radicalises political movements," they said.

"If rights of the the protesters had been respected or if the people had not been lied to or disrespected, the situation would have never turned into a national crisis," Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami said.

Iran was rocked by violent protests after the election, with authorities locking up reformists, political activists, journalists and protesters to quell the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The post-election turmoil left at least 20 people dead and shook the very pillars of the Islamic regime, exposing deep differences in the country of 70 million people and even saw unprecedented criticism of Khamenei.

Iran's police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam said last week that "two-thirds" of around 1,000 people arrested during the protests have been released. Human rights groups estimated that as many as 2,000 had been detained.

Mousavi continues to call for a fresh poll despite the powerful electoral watchdog, the Guardians Council, upholding Ahmadinejad's victory.

Iran has accused Western powers, notably Britain and the United States, of stoking post election unrest.

Ahmadinejad hit out at world powers in Tuesday's speech, railing against their "interference and childish acts" and vowing that Iran "will not back down in seeking its deserved position and rights."

Iran continues to hold one of nine local British embassy employees arrested on accusations of inciting violence, while Paris said the authorities have detained a French woman academic in Tehrans notorious Evin prison.

President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday that spying charges against Clotilde Reiss, 23, were "pure fantasy" and that she should be released "very, very soon."

"Let me say in the clearest and simplest way possible: we demand the release of our compatriot," Sarkozy said.

Iranian authorities have made no comment on her detention.

In Vienna, former Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr boldly accused Khamenei -- who has ruled the Islamic republic for 20 years -- of being personally behind the alleged election irregularities.

"Khamenei ordered the fraud in the presidential election and the ensuing crackdown on protestors," Banisadr said at a symposium.

"The regime is edging closer to the abyss and is holding on to power solely by means of violence and terror," said Banisadr, who was Iran's first elected post-revolution president and has been living in exile in France since 1981.

US President Barack Obama, who had criticised the Iranian crackdown and raised questions about the election, strongly denied that the United States had given Israel a green light to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Absolutely not," he said in an interview with CNN.

Obama said diplomatic channels should be used to resolve the international standoff over Iran's nuclear drive which the West fears is a cover for efforts to build atomic weapons despite Tehran's denials.