TEHRAN: Moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani will assume Iran’s highest elected office on August 3, ending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial eight-year presidency, a deputy speaker of parliament said yesterday.
Rowhani will become president once supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate decision-maker in the Islamic republic, formally endorses his surprise June election.
That ceremony, attended by top officials, will take place on August 3, deputy speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar said in remarks reported by the state broadcaster’s website.
A day later, on August 4, Rowhani will take the oath of office before parliament and will then have two weeks to form his proposed cabinet, Bahonar said.
His win was seen as a rejection of Ahmadinejad’s controversial policies.
The 64-year-old mid-ranking Shia cleric has vowed to form a government that bridges the divide, using skilled experts from the conservatives as well as currently marginalised reformists.
Rowhani says he aims to ease international tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and to resolve domestic woes, including economic hardships exacerbated by Western sanctions targeting the country’s vital oil income.
France woos UAE to buy satellites
ABU DHABI: French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Abu Dhabi yesterday for talks on military cooperation with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahayan, state news agency WAM reported.
According to French business daily La Tribune, Paris is trying to convince the UAE to buy two surveillance satellites built by Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, in a contract worth more than ¤500m.
France has also been trying for years to sell the United Arab Emirates its Rafale jet fighters, which have struggled to find buyers, to support a project that has cost tens of billions of euros.
WAM said that Sheikh Mohammed, deputy head of the armed forces in the oil-rich Gulf state, discussed “friendly relations” and “the excellent coordination” between the two countries. They also discussed bilateral cooperation and “developing it to serve their common interests, especially military and defence,” it added without giving further details.
Tunisia extends emergency
TUNIS: The Tunisian presidency said yesterday it would extend by three months the state of emergency in place since the uprising that toppled former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.
“The president of the republic Moncef Marzouki decided to extend the state of emergency by three months,” the official TAP news agency reported.
The three-month period will start retroactively from July 3, it said.
The agency said the “decision was taken following a proposal by security leaders and after meetings with the prime minister and the president of the Constituent National Assembly”. Tunisia’s authorities have renewed the state of emergency by periods ranging from three months to a year since the 2011 uprising when Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia.
The state of emergency has given extra powers to the army and police to help them contain radical Islamist militants, who have launched several attacks since the fall of Ben Ali.
Agencies
