{"id":116654,"date":"2021-06-17T10:34:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T10:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=116654"},"modified":"2021-06-17T10:34:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T10:34:40","slug":"former-iranian-president-lashes-out-over-election-process-demands-u-s-stops-meddling-in-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/former-iranian-president-lashes-out-over-election-process-demands-u-s-stops-meddling-in-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Iranian president lashes out over election process, demands U.S. stops &#x27;meddling&#x27; in Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Mahmoud Ahmadinejad&#x27;s comments come after his was rejected by Iran&#x27;s Guardian Council, the vetting body of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/li>\n<li>Iran&#x27;s economy and vital oil exports have been crippled by the double blow of Covid-19 and sanctions from the U.S. and other world powers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Iran prepares to head to the polls on Friday, the country&#x27;s former president has called out the U.S. for meddling in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>In a wide ranging interview with CNBC ahead of the vote, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad\u00a0said the 2015 nuclear deal caused &quot;more problems than it resolved&quot; and cast doubt on the legitimacy of his country&#x27;s election.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Any decision that prevents the people from influencing the outcome is against the spirit of the revolution and the constitution,&quot; Iran&#x27;s former President Ahmadinejad told CNBC.<\/p>\n<p>The comments come after the former president&#x27;s candidacy was rejected by Iran&#x27;s Guardian Council, the vetting body of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The move essentially barred him from running in the 2021 election.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I made it clear on the day that I announced my candidacy that I will not participate in the elections if the will of millions of people is denied for no legitimate reason, like it has been in the past,&quot; Ahmadinejad said about the decision to exclude him.<\/p>\n<p>A field of more than 600 candidates was narrowed to just five on Thursday. The presidential race is now seen as a contest between the moderate former central bank chief, Abdolnaser Hemmati, and the hardline judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts say Raisi is the &quot;clear frontrunner,&quot; with the highest name recognition among the candidates. Raisi served four decades in Iran&#x27;s judiciary, and ran but lost to Rouhani in the 2017 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ahmadinejad&#x27;s two terms between 2005 and 2013 were marked by fiery exchanges, with him lashing out repeatedly over U.S. policy in the region, Iran&#x27;s nuclear ambitions and Israel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The former leader told CNBC that any change in leadership will have implications for already strained relations between the United States and Iran, which are negotiating to free a crippled Iranian economy from sanctions in exchange for new limits on its controversial nuclear program.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Nuclear deal<\/h2>\n<p>&quot;The JCPOA caused more problems than it resolved,&quot; Ahmadinejad said when asked about the deal that former U.S President Trump abandoned in 2018, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.<\/p>\n<p>Originally signed between Iran and world powers in 2015, the JCPOA put restrictions on Iran&#x27;s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.<\/p>\n<p>The former president said he believed a new nuclear deal with the United States was possible, but the timeline on an agreement was still uncertain given the apparent differences on both sides.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I believe that the two countries will need to change their perspectives and look at each other differently,&quot; Ahmadinejad said. &quot;If we base things in accordance with justice and mutual respect, then I believe that the problems can be solved.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Presidential frontrunner Raisi has voiced support for Iran&#x27;s nuclear talks in the past, but it&#x27;s unclear how a change in leadership in Iran will impact the negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&quot;While in theory it would be possible to conclude the talks and get everything signed before Rouhani steps down, past experience shows that the nuclear talks tend to move at a snail&#x27;s pace, even without political complications,&quot; Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We doubt that Raisi will be as belligerent and strident as Ahmadinejad had been, but they are closer ideologically to each other as compared to Rouhani,&quot; he added. &quot;Depending on what Raisi says after the election, and how his administration behaves in its early days, it is even possible to envision a suspension of the talks altogether, though that would be a rather extreme scenario.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Regional aggressor<\/h2>\n<p>Relations between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors have begun to thaw since the election of U.S. President Joe Biden, but Iran&#x27;s former president says U.S. &quot;meddling&quot; via arms sales remains a challenge to regional stability.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;When tens of billions of dollars of arms is sold to countries within the region annually, this causes major problems.&quot; Ahmadinejad said. &quot;This threatens the security of the region and is considered as meddling \u2026 the U.S. government should not be seeking to control Iran, or the Middle East.&quot;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. is the world&#x27;s largest arms supplier and the Middle East is a key export market, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The U.S approved the sale of $23 billion in arms to the UAE earlier this year. Weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, a key Iranian rival, are under review.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#x27;s economy and vital oil exports have been crippled by the double blow of Covid-19 and sanctions from the U.S. and other world powers. So far, over 3 million people in the country have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and over 82,000 people have died.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Iranian people believe that the response to the Covid pandemic in the country was a failure,&quot; Ahmadinejad said. &quot;I must say that the frontline workers and the medical professionals worked tirelessly, but the overall management has been ineffective and unwise,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#x27;s economic hit from Covid-19 was less pronounced than in other countries, as its economy had already contracted by 12% over the previous two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A new nuclear deal and sanctions relief would allow fresh revenues to flow early in a new government&#x27;s term. Iran&#x27;s real gross domestic product, or GDP, is estimated to grow by 1.7% in 2020-2021, according to The World Bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iranian officials say oil production could reach up to 4 million barrels per day within 90 days of sanctions being lifted. As it stands, Iran&#x27;s oil exports are minimal, as Trump-era sanctions continue to dissuade most international buyers.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014CNBC&#x27;s Emma Graham contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/06\/17\/former-iranian-president-lashes-out-over-election-process.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mahmoud Ahmadinejad&#x27;s comments come after his was rejected by Iran&#x27;s Guardian Council, the vetting body of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran&#x27;s economy and vital [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Former Iranian president lashes out over election process, demands U.S. stops &#x27;meddling&#x27; in Middle East - Fin2me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/former-iranian-president-lashes-out-over-election-process-demands-u-s-stops-meddling-in-middle-east\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Iranian president lashes out over election process, demands U.S. stops &#x27;meddling&#x27; in Middle East - Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad&#x27;s comments come after his was rejected by Iran&#x27;s Guardian Council, the vetting body of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 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