The two men have submitted a request to the interior ministry for a march on February 14 on a main Tehran thoroughfare between Azadi (Freedom) and Emam Hossein squares, Kaleme and Sahamnews websites said.

"We request a permit for a march to declare solidarity with popular movements in the region especially the freedom-seeking uprising of the people of Tunisia and Egypt against dictatorship," they said in the letter to the ministry.

The dissident leaders have never been granted a demonstration permit but the call for the march backing the Arab uprisings could return their supporters to the streets in opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.

Mousavi and Karroubi led a series of massive protests in Iran after a presidential election in June 2009 against Ahmadinejad, who they charge won a second term by massive fraud.

But opposition supporters have stayed off the streets since last year's Islamic revolution anniversary on February 11, 2010.

Dozens of Iranian protesters were killed and thousands arrested in the heavy security crackdown launched by authorities after the post-election unrest which erupted in 2009.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a sermon at weekly prayers on Friday that the uprisings had been inspired by his country's Islamic revolution of 1979.