Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has prostate surgery

The Guardian

Iran's supreme leader has undergone prostate surgery at a government hospital in Tehran, state media said in a rare report on the state of health of 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The official IRNA news agency said the operation, which was described as routine, was successful. There were no immediate details on what had prompted the surgery or the underlying medical condition.

Iranian state TV said Khamenei told the station just ahead of the surgery that there was "no room for concern". The station aired brief footage of Khamenei just before the surgery in which he asked people to pray for him.

"There is no room for concern, but this does not mean that they – the people – do not need to pray," Khamenei said.

Khamenei was a close ally of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, who led the 1979 Islamic revolution and was later Iran's supreme leader until his death in 1989.

Khamenei served as Iran's president for eight years before becoming supreme leader in 1989. He has proved a powerful defender of the rule by clerics created by his predecessor.

He thwarted the movement in support of a reformist presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in 2009, and when hundreds of thousands of Iranians demonstrated in the streets, some overtly denouncing him, he stepped forward to crush the protests.

Khamenei has kept Iran on a firmly anti-US path, pushing ahead with its nuclear ambitions despite international pressure and sanctions. At the same time, Iran has sought to extend its influence in the Middle East through its ally Syria and Islamic militant groups despite attempts by US-backed Arab governments to contain Iran.

More recently, Khamenei has lent support to the talks between Iran and the six world powers on the country's controversial nuclear programme and the breakthrough interim agreement those talks produced last November.

But Khamenei has also expressed doubts the talks will lead anywhere. Last month, Khamenei said the US had grown more hostile to Iran since the talks began, and that there was no point in holding direct negotiations with Washington.