Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has named an acting president following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials in a helicopter crash. Prime Minister Benjamin Netyanyahu is facing accusations from his own war cabinet that he doesn’t have a strategy for replacing Hamas in Gaza. Michael Cohen will return to the stand in what will likely be the final day of testimony in the New York criminal trial of former President Donald Trump. And a London court is expected to deliver a final decision on whether or not Julian Assange can appeal extradition to the U.S.
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The new president reiterates the stance that boosting relations with regional neighbours would be at the top of his foreign policy.
Tehran, Iran – Ebrahim Raisi has been sworn in as Iran’s eighth president.
At the ceremony in the country’s parliament in Tehran on Thursday, Raisi, with a hand on a Quran, read the inauguration oath before adding that he will make Iran stronger and engage with the world.
The 60-year-old Raisi, who is a frontrunner to replace the 82-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iranians want him to maintain the country’s independence and resist foreign bullying.
But he also promised to pursue “diplomacy and constructive and extensive engagement with the world”, reiterating his stance that boosting relations with regional neighbours would be at the top of his foreign policy.
“I extend a hand of friendship and brotherhood to all countries, especially those in the region,” Raisi said.
He told some 260 local and foreign officials present at the chamber that regional crises need to be resolved through dialogue, and the presence of foreign forces only encourages more instability.
Countering rhetoric by the West, Israel and some Arab neighbours, Raisi also asserted that Iran’s presence in the region creates security and supports peace and stability.
He also said harsh US sanctions, imposed in 2018 after then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, must be lifted.
“We will support any diplomatic plans that will achieve this goal,” he said, signalling he will continue negotiations in Vienna aimed at restoring the accord.
Moreover, he promised that Iran’s nuclear programme is strictly peaceful and nuclear weapons “have no place in the country’s defence strategy”.
The president tried to convey that he understands the many challenges ahead – including a troubled economy – and said he will try to improve the quality of life for all Iranians.
He further promised to be a “true defender of human rights”, not just in Iran but across the region.
This follows calls on Thursday by Amnesty International for Raisi to be “criminally investigated” for his role in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Iran has been in antagonism with Israel on the nuclear deal which Raisi is obviously poised to revive. severally, former Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged bitter words with Iran’s presidents when presenting speeches at the United Nations General Assembly.
Israel feels that the nuclear deal is aimed to wipe out the Israel nation as Iran does not recognise the state of Israel.
Hardliners
Raisi’s speech came after addresses by parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and newly selected judiciary chief Mohsen Ejei.
Raisi, Ghalibaf and Ejei hailed the country’s June 18 presidential elections as “historic” and “epic” and said it signalled that the people of Iran trust the establishment and the “revolutionary” elements within it represented by the hardliners.
“Jihadi management is the solution to all the physical and spiritual problems of the society,” Ghalibaf said.
Ghalibaf came to power in February 2020 in elections that saw a 42 percent turnout, the lowest in any election since the 1979 revolution.
The June presidential elections saw a 48.8 percent turnout, also the lowest in any presidential election since the revolution.
Reformist and moderate candidates were widely disqualified from running in either race.
The selection of a hardline Tehran mayor next week would signal the completion of a takeover of power by hardliners who have been significantly empowered since the US reneged on the nuclear deal.
The president now has two weeks to present his cabinet picks but is likely to do so earlier after the supreme leader, on Tuesday, directed him in his endorsement ceremony to form his team quickly since the country is in a dire economic situation and needs immediate action.
Foreign guests
In addition to top officials of the country, including the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani, the inauguration ceremony was attended by dozens of high-level representatives from more than 70 countries, including several heads of state, according to state television.
In preparation, Tehran was ordered to shut down entirely on Thursday. Streets around the parliament were cleared, government offices and banks were closed, and airports stopped operating for several hours.
Iraqi President Barham Salih, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Palestinian Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Russian Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin were some of the top leaders from the region to attend the ceremony.
Other regional representative guests included the speaker of Turkey’s National Assembly, Mustafa Sentop, Pakistani Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjirani, Yemeni Houthis’ chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam, Syrian parliament Speaker Hammouda Sabbagh, and Azerbaijani National Assembly Chairman Sahiba Gafarova.
Delegates also attended from several nations from Africa, South America, Europe and Eastern Asia. Pope Francis sent a representative as well.
Thousands of worshippers gathered inside a large prayer hall in central Tehran to listen to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s address [File: Anadolu Agency]
TEHRAN-(MaraviPost)-In his first Friday sermon delivery since 2012, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has defended the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) amid a growing backlash after it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people on board.
Khamenei’s address comes as Iran and its rulers face intense pressure at home and abroad after the United States assassinated General Qassem Soleimani, former leader of the elite Quds Force, and the eruption of public anger at Iran’s military after its accidental downing of the commercial airliner soon after it took off from Tehran on January 8.
He described the crash as a “bitter tragedy” and also claimed that “Iran’s enemies” used the crash and the military’s admission to “weaken” the Revolutionary Guard.
“The plane crash was a bitter accident, it burned through our heart,” Khamenei said.
“But some tried to … portray it in a way to forget the great martyrdom and sacrifice” of Soleimani, he added, referring to the slain head of the IRGC’s foreign operations arm.
“Our enemies were as happy about the plane crash as we were sad … happy that they found something to question the Guard, the armed forces, the system.”
Thousands of worshippers gathered inside a large prayer hall in central Tehran to listen to Khamenei’s address. They packed the area and streets outside the building, chanting: “Death to America.”
After denying a role in the plane crash, the Revolutionary Guards, an elite military force answering directly to Khamenei that acts as guardian of the Islamic Republic, admitted on January 11 that one of its air defence operators mistakenly shot down Ukraine Airlines International flight 752.
Iranian authorities said earlier this week that a number of people had been arrested over the Ukrainian airliner incident.
But the downing of the plane and belated admission triggered large protests in Tehran and other cities, with the authorities responding by deploying riot police outside universities, where many students had protested.
Video footage posted online showed protesters were beaten and also recorded gunshots, tear gas and blood on the streets. Iran’s police denied firing at protesters and said officers had been ordered to show restraint.
‘Hand of God’
In his sermon, Khamenei also showed support for Iran’s missile strikes on US targets in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Soleimeni, saying they showed Iran had divine support in delivering a “slap on the face” to a world power.
“The fact that Iran has the power to give such a slap to a world power shows the hand of God,” said Khamenei, adding that the US killing of Soleimani showed Washington’s “terrorist nature”.
The US said on Thursday that 11 of its troops were treated for concussion after the missile attacks, after initially saying that none of its forces was wounded.
US President Donald Trump, who pulled Washington out of a nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and ratcheted up tensions by reimposing sanctions, had ordered the January 3 drone strike that killed Soleimani, who built up proxy militias across the region.
Praising Soleimani, Khamenei said his actions beyond Iran’s borders were in the service of the “security” of the nation and that the people are in favour of “firmness” and “resistance” in the face of enemies.
“The few hundred who insulted the picture of General Soleimani, are they the people of Iran? Or this million-strong crowd in the streets?” he said in an apparent reference to the reported tearing down of a portrait of the dead commander by protesters in Tehran a few days after hundreds of thousands turned out for his funeral.
Khamenei accused the US of “lying” in its expressions of support for the Iranian people.
He said that even if they were with the people, “it is to stab them with their poison dagger”.
Khamenei also said on Friday that three European states party to the 2015 nuclear pact “cannot be trusted”, after the United Kingdom, France and Germany triggered a formal dispute mechanism in the agreement, which could lead to UN sanctions being reimposed.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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![Thousands of worshippers gathered inside a large prayer hall in central Tehran to listen to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's address [File: Anadolu Agency]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/1/17/b275585eb44d48a3b844708283cb57de_18.jpg)