DUBAI - Iran will defeat a "conspiracy" against its foreign currency and gold markets, an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday, as pressure mounts on authorities to deal with the rapid collapse of the rial. Riot police fought demonstrators and arrested money changers in and around the Tehran bazaar on Wednesday during protests triggered by the fall of the Iranian currency, which has lost a third of its value against the dollar over the last week. Protesters called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a traitor because of what many say is his serious mismanagement of the economy, which has also been badly hit by U.S.-led Western sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear programme. But there has so far been no public criticism of Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's most powerful authority. "Iran is overcoming the psychological war and conspiracy that the enemy has brought to the currency and gold market and this war is constantly fluctuating," Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, an adviser to Khamenei, said in a report by the semi-official Fars news agency. "The arrogant powers, in their crude way, think that the nation of Iran is ready to let go of the Islamic revolution through economic pressure but we are establishing Iran's economic strength," he said. Haddad Adel is an ally of Khamenei and father-in-law to his son Mojtaba. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric, called on the various branches of government to work together to solve the country's economic problems. "It is expected that the authorities should solve the problems with empathy. Treating the pain will solve the problem, not apportioning blame," he said in a sermon at Friday prayers. Most of the bazaar was shut on Thursday, but business associations said it would reopen on Saturday under the supervision of the security forces. It is traditionally closed on Fridays. Analysts say any further discontent could spread quickly if it is allowed to gain a foothold.
