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Iran’s supreme leader extended a rare apology on behalf of the Islamic Republic amid signs of public discontent in recent months, saying authorities need to work harder at establishing justice in the country.

“People have complaints about some of the country’s existing issues” and officials “well aware,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday, according to the state-run Mehr news agency. The public’s criticism “is not only directed at the government, the parliament and judiciary. Maybe some also criticize me.”

The Islamic Republic has known progress in the past decade but it’s “behind when it comes to justice,” Khamenei told an audience of Iranians from the northern city of Tabriz. “We need to apologize to people and to God” and “work at doing better in this area too.”

The remarks by the country’s highest authority were a rare acknowledgment that popular discontent -- as apparent in angry protests that erupted in several cities in December -- may not have been restricted to the realm of economic issues or limited to president Hassan Rouhani’s administration but a sign of frustration with the political establishment’s shortcomings.

 

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