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Iran's President-elect Hasan Rohani during Monday's press conference.WANA NEWS AGENCY / Reuters
Iran's president-elect, Ebrahim Raisí, on Monday ruled out the possibility of meeting with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, even if the nuclear agreement (PIAC, acronym for the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action) is reactivated. In his first appearance before the press after last Friday's elections, the hitherto head of the Judiciary has also rejected the possibility of expanding that pact to include the missile program of the Islamic Republic and its support for the militias of neighboring countries. , just as Washington claims. Even so, the ultra-conservative politician has said he wants to improve relations with the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
He was curious to know directly Raisí's opinion on the nuclear negotiations taking place in Vienna and foreign policy in general.
His campaign focused above all on the internal economic crisis and on associating the outgoing government, and therefore the moderates behind it, with the country's flagrant corruption.
Despite the fact that matters of national security are the responsibility of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneí, presidents have a certain margin to set the tone and, above all, to make gestures that help build bridges.
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Raisí has not left the official script. "Our foreign policy does not begin with PIAC nor is it going to be limited to PIAC," he declared in reference to the official name of the agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and the great powers, which the US abandoned three years later. “If the talks safeguard our national interests, we will support them, but we will not allow attrition talks. We want results, ”he said before asking for what has been an Iranian demand since the beginning of the negotiations: that all sanctions be lifted and some form of verification be established.
He hasn't even left the door ajar for an eventual gesture. When a journalist asked him if, once he achieved that goal, he would be willing to meet with the president of the United States, Raisí replied with a laconic "no." Anti-Americanism is one of the pillars of the theocratic regime established by Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution. His successor, Khameneí, shares it squarely and only the difficult economic situation to which Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy has condemned Iran has been led to accept European mediation with the Biden Administration to try to reactivate the agreement.
But that's as far as Iran's top religious and political authority is willing to go. Raisí, a protégé of Khameneí and who shares his misgivings towards the West, has made it clear that "regional issues and missiles are not negotiable." Shortly after arriving at the White House, Biden said that his willingness to return to PIAC sought to extend both the terms during which Iran's nuclear capacity is limited and the scope of the agreement to include those two issues, which are at the root of the rejection of the pact of Iran's neighbors.
Arab countries blame Tehran for the instability in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen for its support for the armed groups that shape the policies of those countries. Furthermore, they feel threatened by the development of their ballistic missile program. (Iran insists it is purely defensive in the face of the modern arsenal that the US has provided to its Arab allies.) Even so, Raisí has stated that Iran wants to interact with all countries. "The priority of my Government is to improve relations with our neighbors in the region," he said, according to the PressTV translation, which broadcast the press conference live.
Nor has he been moved by the question of whether the US sanctions for its responsibility in the repression or the accusations that it has signed thousands of death sentences for opponents, launched by Amnesty International and other human rights groups, will affect its relations. with other leaders. "As a jurist, I have always defended the rights of the people," he replied before adding that Washington had sanctioned him for his work as a judge. It is the first time that he has addressed the matter in public.
Regarding domestic politics, he has reiterated his campaign promises to fight corruption and promote national production. "We have to achieve self-sufficiency in basic products," he defended, in what seems like a return to the economic principles of the first years after the revolution. Raisí has assured that he wants to be "the president of all Iranians", not only of those who have voted for him but even of those who have not even voted. But he has attributed the abstention to the pandemic, without in any case reflecting on the enormous fracture that divides the country. On the contrary, he has insisted that the "epic" participation in the elections sends "a message of national unity."
On the street the perception is different. "Raisí is much more closed than [the outgoing president, Hasan] Rohaní," the taxi driver confided on the way to the airport hours before the press conference. During the election day, there were those who remembered the turn that the reformist Mohammad Khatami replaced in 2005 by the ultra Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Then, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran dared to show the bulk of its collections (Western painting) for the first time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. As if it were a premonition, on the eve of Raisí's election it inaugurated an exhibition dedicated to Andy Warhol, which will last until July 25, a couple of weeks before he takes office.
