As many as 137 of the members present voted for and 117 against the dismissal of Nouri, IRNA, the Islamic Republic News Agency, said. Eleven members abstained.

Meanwhile the AP adds from Teheran, just over an hour after the impeachment, the President named Nouri as Deputy President.

``Due to your capabilities, I appoint you as the deputy president for development and social affairs,'' Khatami said in his one-line statement to Nouri.

Khatami also appointed the Deputy Interior Minister for Social Affairs, Mostafa Tajzadeh, as acting interior minister, State-run television reported. This is significant, because Tajzadeh is a staunch loyalist of both Khatami and Nouri.

Nouri, a clergyman, was not present in the House when the results of the vote were declared after the secret ballot, reports said.

The vote means that Nouri willhave to resign, but there was no indication about when he would do so.

The impeachment is seen as a victory for conservative members of Iran's ruling clergy and a setback for Khatami, who assumed office last August after a landslide victory in the May elections.

Six of 31 members, who had earlier this month signed the motion for Nouri's impeachment, spoke in today's session of the Majlis.

The minister also spoke for more than two hours, defending his performance.The motion cited ``creation of tension in the society, giving provocative interviews and speeches and appointing inexperienced people to managerial positions at the interior ministry'' as some of the reasons for the impeachment move.

The motion said Nouri's continuance in office was ``detrimental to tranquility and stability in the country.''

Nouri defended all his actions and said there was a plot to divide the new generation of leaders and the clergy.

``I do not claim that I have never made a mistake. However, you should realise there isa plot afoot to separate the young, bright university generation from the revolution and the clergy,'' he told Parliament.Nouri had angered traditionalists for granting permits to student groups and other organisations to hold pro-reform demonstrations in the country. Some of those rallies had turned violent when hardliners scuffled with the demonstrators.

Last week, Khatami had expressed the hope that the Majlis would vote against the impeachment motion, ``considering the sensitivity of the issue and the situation the country is in.''

``Political development is one of the focal points of my plans..... This principle is serious for me and my government and we are ready to pay its costs,'' he was quoted as saying.

At the same time, he said an impeachment debate would not necessarily lead to a rift between the legislature and the executive.

``Impeachment is a kind of dialogue and dialogue is among the policies of the government,'' he said.Majlis Speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, who had lost thePresidential elections to Khatami last May, also stressed today that the impeachment debate did not mean a confrontation between the two branches of the government.

He said Members of Parliament had the right to move an impeachment motion.Regional news agencies quoted Nouri as telling the Members of Parliament that they had a challenge to make religion, and by extension, religious rule, appealing to the masses of Iranian youth.

He pointed out that more than two-thirds of the Iranian population today had no understanding of what happened before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran.

``This is a very important point. More than 42 million people in our country are under 30 years of age, that is, when the revolution occurred, he or she was only ten years of age or had not even been born,'' he said.

``The reason we propose the issue of political development and giving more freedom as well as the defence of the rule of law in Iran is because we want the revolution and the officials of our country to serveas pioneers of these mottos,'' he said. ``...We must not act in a way that, god forbid, those who are supposed to be with us (the youth) would become prey to our enemies,'' he added.

Nouri had earlier served as interior ministry between 1989 and 1993 in the cabinet of then President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was a Member of Parliament between 1993 and 1997.