Iranians went to the polls on June 16 in the country's first presidential vote since the disputed 2009 election that saw Mahmud Ahmadinejad reelected for a second and final term. RFE/RL editors and the team at Radio Farda will provide updates throughout the day and night on the vote, letting you know what's at stake and what comes next for Iran.
Head of Iran's police force, Brigadier General Esma'il Ahmadi-Moqaddam, tells "Fars" that the vote is "running smoothly" in the country.
"From the early hours of voting, people participated enthusiastically with discipline and calm and no worrisome issues have been reported," Fars quoted Ahmadi-Moqaddam as saying.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian police chief said security had been tightened in border regions on election day and that Iran's border with Iraq had been closed because, "in the opinion of the police, commuting across the border with Iraq would not be problematic."
- Via the Open Source Center
14:4514.6.2013
Women wait in a queue to vote at a polling station at the Massoumeh shrine in the holy city of Qom:
14:1914.6.2013
Young man in #Iran tells me:Rohani part of establishment.He was silent during 2009 crackdown.He can't bring any meaningful change if elected
"Asharq Al-Awsat" publishes a long interview with Hassan Rohani. An excerpt:
Asharq Al-Awsat: Given that the supreme leader is at the top of Iran’s political hierarchy, if elected, how would you ensure that your foreign policy initiatives have his support?
Hassan Rouhani: Decisions on major foreign policy issues constitutionally require the support of the supreme leader. I am privileged to have a long experience of working closely with the supreme leader, having served as Iran’s national security advisor during the Khatami and Rafsanjani administrations. Even during the last eight years, I remained one of his two representatives in the Supreme National Security Council. If elected, I expect to receive the same support and trust from the supreme leader on initiatives and measures I adopt to advance our foreign policy agenda.
Q: What about Iran’s nuclear program? Do you support talks between Iran and the P5+1, the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany?
Iran has an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, which under international law is lawful and indisputable. A politically motivated campaign of misinformation has persistently attempted to cast doubts on the exclusively peaceful nature of this program. This campaign is being fueled and directed first and foremost by Israel, in order to divert international attention not only from its own clandestine and dangerous nuclear weapons program, but also from its destabilizing and inhuman policies and practices in Palestine and the Middle East. Regrettably, the Security Council has discredited itself by allowing the United States to impose this counter-productive Israeli agenda.
If elected, I will reverse this trend by restoring international confidence and exposing the ulterior motives [of Iran’s critics]. Nuclear weapons have no role in Iran’s national security doctrine, and therefore Iran has nothing to conceal. But in order to move towards the resolution of Iran’s nuclear dossier, we need to build both domestic consensus and global convergence and understanding through dialogue.
Iran should articulate its positions and policies in a more coherent and appreciable manner, and the United States and its allies should abandon their deception of manufacturing new enemies and portraying Iran and its exclusively peaceful nuclear program as a threat. Serious, balanced and time-bound negotiations aimed at resolving clearly defined questions and concerns by both sides can play an effective role in resolving this artificially manufactured crisis. The P5+1 can be one channel for such negotiations, provided that they are prepared to be a vehicle for understanding and resolution of the issue rather than a tool for procrastination and political blackmail.
