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Iran's low-key reaction to bugging of supreme leader

Iran's response to reports that the US National Security Agency bugged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a trip to the Kurdistan region of Iran in 2009 has been relatively muted and has not affected Iran's position on negotiations with the P5+1.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran. 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sits next to a portrait of late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini while taking part in a television live programme in Tehran on the occasion of the Iranian New Year March 21, 2011. REUTERS/Leader.ir/Handout (IRAN - Tags: POLITICS PROFILE) THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY

TEHRAN, Iran — While Iranian diplomats and officials have been working for the past two months in successive meetings to lower the walls of distrust between Iran and the governments of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, or P5+1, the revelation of that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who enjoys a special sanctity in the Iranian power structure, had been bugged by the Americans has not been met with a strong reaction from Iran.

The most recent reports based on former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's documents show that the NSA had bugged Khamenei during his trip to the Kurdistan region in 2009, a month before the presidential elections. According to these documents, when the NSA became aware of Khamenei’s trip to the Kurdistan region of Iran, it organized a mission with advanced espionage technology under the code name Dreadnought.

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