With only weeks away from the June 12 elections, Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi cuts the ribbon on his newly-lanuched daily newspaper.

Kalameh Sabz (Green Word) is a 16-page daily covering politics and a variety of other topics, with the main goal of giving an insight into Mousavi's plans and proposals for the future of the country.

"Kalameh Sabz is aimed at creating a mirror-like newspaper, to show who we are and what we stand for and to guide us in finding our path," chief editor, Ali Reza Hosseini Beheshti, explained in the paper's first editorial.

"We want to have a paper that offers a different perspective and urges the people to actively decide their fate," he told AFP.

According to Ebrahim Pashena, one of the newspaper staff, the daily has a start-up circulation of 40,000 for the time being, but will eventually reach several hundred thousand.

The daily, which is slated to be distributed nationwide, released its first issue four days before the election campaign officially began, carrying photos of Mousavi and the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami who endorsed Moussavi's presidential bid.

Moussavi was Iran's last prime minister from 1981 to 1989, serving under then president Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

He is admired for the way he managed the country during the years of imposed Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein which cost the country over $500 billion.

SBB/DT