The demonstrations in Iran after its disputed 2009 Presidential election served to inspire the Tunisia uprising and the mass protests in Egypt, according to the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

“Undoubtedly, the starting point of what we are witnessing in the streets of Tunis, Sanaa, Cairo, Alexandria and Suez should be seen in the (Iranian) protests” of June 2009, Mr Mousavi said on his website.

Soon after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, tens of thousands of Mr Mousavi supporters took to the streets of Tehran charging the poll was rigged.

Massive protests shook the pillars of Iran’s Islamic regime and divided the clerical elite, in one of the worst crises faced by Tehran since its 1979 revolution which toppled the shah.

“The Middle East is on the threshold of great events these days that can affect the fate of the region and the world,” Mr Mousavi said, likening the mass demonstrations in Arab countries to the post-election protests in Iran.

Iranian authorities launched a massive crackdown on the anti-government protesters in a bid to quell the demonstrations which saw dozens of people killed, scores wounded and thousands arrested in 2009.

Mr Mousavi blamed the anger of protesters on Arab streets on “inefficiency and corruption at the top level of government.”

Ties between Tehran and Cairo were severed in 1980, a year after the Islamic revolution and the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The two Muslim countries have interest sections in each other’s capital.

Meanwhile, Tunisian Islamist leader Rached Ghannouchi said on Sunday his movement wanted to play a political role in Tunisia, upon returning to his homeland from more than 20 years in exile after the fall of the old regime.

He said Ennahda (Awakening) would join the government formed after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s downfall if asked to do so, although he emphasised that it would not field a candidate in planned Presidential elections.

“If we feel that the government satisfies the expectations of those who have led this revolution, then why not,” Mr Ghannouchi said, speaking in a room decorated with a Tunisian flag as his aides offered tea and sweets to visitors.