As President Khatami stated in his message,

Oh, you like my ring? It's my grandmother.

Here.

(Signed) Seyed Mohammad Khatami President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

This undermined Khatami s authority even further.

I haven't got it! Here, you can use mine.

It probably did not help that the Bush administration gave up on Khatami.

I can't find it anywhere.

We also can read reactions to Khatami's interview via FriendFeed.

In the week before the vote, both former President Mohammad Khatami and Rafsanjani publically endorsed Rowhani.

Khatami s organizational savvy had not improved much since then.

Khatami, too, had good ideas about press freedom, individual rights, and democratic reforms.

Khatami also said he spends at least one hour a day reading blogs and websites.

This is also why 70 voted for Mohammed Khatami, the reformist president, in 1997.

But Khatami lacked the support of Khamenei, who firmly opposed his reforms.

They also wrote he had done the same thing at a previous president, reformist Mohammad Khatami.

It was opened by Seyed Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on Monday, 9 May 2005.

So what changed? Back then, Iran s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had forbidden Khatami to speak with the Americans.

Khatami answered questions from the internet, including from bloggers, Facebook members and Twitter.

Former President Khatami s initial decision to run for the post again grabbed the international community's attention. Yet a Khatami victory would not have guaranteed change.

Iranian reformers had tried (to no avail) since the landslide 1997 election of President Mohammed Khatami, to change the system from within.

Former President Khatami, meanwhile, is reviled by the fundamentalists and the top brass of the Revolutionary Guards, who repeatedly obstructed his reform agenda during his presidency.

But this objective was also unattainable under President Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad s reform minded predecessor.

It is no surprise that he backed out of the race, leaving Mousavi, a technocrat and a revolutionary, as the only viable challenger to Ahmadinejad.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, who openly considered trying again for the office, would have been a strong candidate for young voters.

The dialogue among civilizations initiated by President Khatami is a key initiative aimed at helping us avoid the dark prospect of an all out clash among civilizations.

Iran has tried two political approaches in the last ten years a reformist model, under President Mohamed Khatami, and hardline radicalism, under Ahmadinejad.

Khatami also stated that the march of the internet is unstoppable, and that it is the government's responsibility to provide appropriate service to population.

Standing in the wings is one possible candidate who might take up where Khatami left off and address the economic and cultural concerns of young Iranians.

But back in 2001, Iran s government, led by reformist President Mohammad Khatami, essentially consented to the US invasion of Afghanistan, even providing discreet assistance.

Muhammad Khatami (1997 2005) tried to implement dramatic political reform, while Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989 97) tried to open the Iranian economy to the West.

The compilation of the information received on activities undertaken highlights the seminal character of the initiative taken in 1998 by the then President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Seyed Mohammad Khatami.

This includes proposals such as that made by President Khatami at the recent UNESCO meeting for the establishment of a global forum for the promotion of dialogue among civilizations and cultures

Yet a Khatami victory would not have guaranteed change. As president, he faced criticism from reformists for his failure to resist a range of powerful groups that sabotaged economic reform and improvement in Iran s relations with the west.

Khatami s successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repeatedly condemned the presence of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and even worked to obstruct their efforts.

Khatami s proposal for a dialogue among civilizations in 2000 was an attempt to open a crack in what he described as the wall of mistrust that continued to separate Iran and the US.

Back then, Iran s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had forbidden Khatami to speak with the Americans. Rouhani, by contrast, proceeded with Khamenei s blessing.

WASHINGTON, DC Iran s presidential race just got more interesting, with former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi throwing his hat in the ring and former President Mohammad Khatami withdrawing his.

That brief conversation the first between the two countries presidents since 1979 recalls the last attempt to revive bilateral diplomacy, undertaken 12 years ago by Iran s then President Mohammad Khatami.

The presidency of Mohammad Khatami, an avowed reformer, who served eight years, beginning in 1997, convinced the Supreme Leader that his authority would be assured only if the presidency was held by a subservient fundamentalist such as the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Back then, Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi went shopping, rather than attend a cultural event at the Asia Society and risk crossing paths and shaking hands with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

A recent op ed in the right wing Kayhan newspaper, which is closely associated with Khamenei, had warned Khatami to avoid the same fate as the assassinated Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.

In the past, he clipped the wings of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had strong ties to the merchant class, and of Mohammad Khatami, a reformer whose support came from Westernized middle class professionals.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, who openly considered trying again for the office, would have been a strong candidate for young voters. His decision not to run disappointed many of them.

On Sunday, Mohamad Khatami, the former reformist Iranian president, who is backing Mir Hussein Mousavi's candidacy in the Iranian presidential election, took part in an internet TV programme launched by reformists called Mowj4.