TEHRAN, Iran: Iran’s supreme leader officially endorsed his hard-line protégé as the nation’s next president on Tuesday, just two days ahead of the inauguration of Ebrahim Raisi. The new president’s ascension comes at a sensitive time for Iran and the wider Middle East.
Iran is reeling from crushing US sanctions that have devastated the economy, led to the crash of the Iranian riyal and hit ordinary Iranians hard.
In his speech, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei advised Raisi, a former judiciary chief, to “empower the country’s poor people and improve the national currency.”
Doubts about an imminent return to Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal, which granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, have become a dark cloud dangling over the incoming hard-line administration.
The collapse of the nuclear agreement after former President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the accord three years ago doomed the relatively moderate administration of outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, who has seen his popularity plummet. Rouhani sat stone-faced throughout the endorsement ceremony.
Last week, Khamenei delivered a harsh rebuke of the West, blaming the delay of the nuclear deal’s revival on America’s “stubborn” negotiating stance. While repeating his usual anti-West rhetoric on Tuesday about Iran’s “enemies” seeking to sway public opinion, Khamenei struck a milder tone during the endorsement. He focused on Iran’s mounting domestic issues, praising Raisi’s anti-corruption campaign and asking him to encourage local production.
“The nation needs competent, effective and brave management,” Khamenei said.
Without commenting on the stalled nuclear negotiations in Vienna, Raisi stressed he would “pursue the removal of oppressive sanctions” in order to salvage the crippled economy.
“We will not (tie) the people’s dining tables and the economy to the will of the foreigners,” he said. Raisi won a landslide victory in the June election, which saw the lowest in the Islamic Republic’s history. He will take the oath of office in an inauguration ceremony Thursday before parliament.
President Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin the landmark nuclear accord and lift sanctions if Iran moves back into compliance with the agreement.
But escalating tensions in the Middle East now risk complicating the diplomatic choreography. The West has blamed Iran for a drone attack last week that struck an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members. Iran has denied involvement in the incident, which marks the first-known fatal assault after a yearslong shadow war targeting commercial shipping in the region.
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Iran supreme leader endorses hard-line protégé as president
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Iran supreme leader endorses hard-line protégé as president
- New Iran president Ebrahim Raisi: Government would try to improve living conditions which have suffered under the sanctions
Death toll in Iran protests rises to more than 500, rights group says
DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Unrest in Iran has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday, as Tehran threatened to target US military bases if President Donald Trump carries out threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
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