Re-elected Iran president talks up better world ties

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani trounced a hardline challenger to secure re-election, saying Saturday that his country seeks peace and friendship as it pursues a “path of coexistence and interaction with the world.”

Friday’s election was widely seen as a referendum on the 68-year-old cleric’s push for greater freedom at home and outreach to the wider world, which culminated in the completion of a 2015 nuclear deal that hard-liners initially opposed.

The nuclear deal won Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for limits on its contested nuclear program. But Iran continues to have high unemployment and a dearth of foreign investment, putting pressure on Rouhani to show that he can do more to turn the economy around.

In his victory speech, Rouhani highlighted his desire for further outreach and the prospect of creating jobs through outside investment.

“Today, Iran — prouder than ever — is ready to promote its relations with the world based on mutual respect and national interests,”

he said in a televised address flanked by photos of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his predecessor, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Iran “is not ready to accept humiliation and threat,” he continued. “This is the most important message that our nation expects to be heard by all — particularly world powers.”

Rouhani secured 57 percent of the vote in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls. His nearest rival in the fourman race, hard-liner and former Attorney General Ebrahim Raisi, won 38 percent of the vote, according to official tallies that covered more than 99 percent of votes cast.

Rouhani was first elected in 2013 with nearly 51 percent of the vote.

Despite the healthy margin of victory, Rouhani faces considerable head winds at home and abroad as he embarks on his second term.

While he accomplished his goal of reaching a nuclear agreement with the United States and Western powers in his first term, that has not translated into the economic revival he predicted because of lingering U.S. sanctions.

Also, he must deal with President Donald Trump’s administration, which only reluctantly signed the sanctions waivers that are a central part of the nuclear agreement. At a summit this weekend in Saudi Arabia involving Trump and leaders of predominantly Muslim countries, Iran was not invited.

The Trump administration’s national security officials are on record as considering Iran the source of most of the Middle East’s troubles, and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress has been resistant to loosening the unilateral sanctions that are frightening off foreign banks and businesses from

investing in Iran.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, at a joint news conference Saturday in Riyadh, had tough words for Iran after the election results, saying they wanted to see action, not just rhetoric from Tehran’s re-elected president.

Tillerson said he wants Rouhani to “begin a process of dismantling Iran’s network of terrorism, dismantling its financing of the terrorist network, dismantling of the manning and the logistics and everything that they provide to these destabilizing forces that exist in this region.”

“That’s what we hope this election will bring. I’m not going to comment on my expectation,” Tillerson said.

‘THE GOLDEN PAGE’

Although considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Rouhani was the favorite pick for those seeking more liberal changes in the conservative Islamic Republic.

Rouhani appeared to embrace a more reform-minded role during the campaign as he openly criticized hard-liners and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force involved in the war in Syria and the fight against the Islamic State group in neighboring Iraq.

Despite controlling most unelected councils, the conservative clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders have suffered a string of political defeats, starting with Rouhani’s election in 2013. That led to direct talks with their archenemy, the United States, and ultimately to the nuclear deal. Then moderate and reformist candidates made strong gains in last year’s parliamentary elections.

“Today is the golden page in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Rouhani’s interior minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said in televised remarks. “Yesterday, the people of Iran showed the world that we want our system and our religion.”

Rouhani’s criticisms gave hope to his supporters, who during recent campaign rallies called for the release of two reformist leaders of the 2009 Green Movement who remain under house arrest. The two figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both endorsed Rouhani, as did Mohammad Khatami, another reformist who served as Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005.

After Rouhani’s victory he said Saturday after invoking the name of God: “With more than 41 million of your votes, you have pulled out the history of our country away from inertia and doubt.” He made a point of mentioning the name of Khatami, whose name and portrait have been banned by state television and all domestic print media. “I will keep my promises,” Rouhani added.

Many female drivers held out the V for victory sign and flashed their car lights on highways to celebrate the win in Tehran’s affluent north.

“I feel that I did a huge thing. I voted for my country’s future,” said 32-year-old Sarah Hassanpour, who wore a loosely fitting head-scarf covering only the back of her head. “I am so happy, because there will be no war and insecurity.”

As night fell, tens of thousands of Rouhani backers celebrated by pouring into the streets of downtown Tehran, setting off fireworks and chanting in support of Mousavi.

Many wore ribbons of Rouhani’s color purple as well as green in support of the opposition leaders under house arrest.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Schreck, Nasser Karimi, Amir Vahdat, Jon Gambrell and Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press; by Ramin Mostaghim and Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times; by Thomas Erdbrink of The New

York Times; and by Jennifer Jacobs and Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News.