Tehran  - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not to get too confident after his re-election and also listen to his critics, local media reported.

"Although the (majority) vote of the people should be a source of pride, but still any kind of overconfidence should be avoided as this is one of the devil's main traps and leads to numerous deviations," the Ayatollah said in meeting with the president and his new ministers.

According to the constitution, the Ayatollah has the final say on all state affairs. While he has supported Ahmadinejad's disputed re- election, the Ayatollah has sometimes expressed dissatisfaction with some of the president's policies and remarks.

"Although some of the criticism (against the government) is directed by foreign media, there is also some criticism which is well-meant and should therefore be paid attention to," the leader said.

This was the first time since the controversial June 12 presidential election that the Iranian leader openly criticized the president.

"Not every criticism should be interpreted (by the government) as enmity," the Ayatollah added.

Ahmadinejad and his camp have on several occasions accused the opposition of planning to weaken the establishment by criticizing the president's performance.

Ahmadinejad has also been charged by his opponents of giving priority to ideological rather than qualified criteria in selecting his team, and therefore not sufficiently paying attention to experts and scholars, especially in economic planning.

"There should be no haste but you (Ahmadinejad) should rather use experts' opinions especially on economic issues, as ignoring such opinions could lead to big damages," Khamenei said.

The Ayatollah, however, also deplored the opposition and its election fraud charges and said some of the reactions to the presidential election was neither decent nor ethical and fair.

Ahmadinejad on Monday once again demanded that the leaders of the unrests should be legally held responsible.

The president's call to prosecute opposition leaders such as former premier Mir-Hossein Moussavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the two ex-presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani have so far been ignored by Khamenei and the judiciary.  dpa