(27 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 27 June 2024
++STARTS ON SOUNDBITE++
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Jon Gambrell, AP news director for the Gulf and Iran:
"Iran is holding a presidential election to replace the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. Now in Iran, all decisions ultimately rests with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But presidents in Iran in the past have been able to bend Iran’s foreign policy, either towards confrontation with the West, as we see with Iran now enriching uranium up to near weapons-grade levels, to negotiations with the West, as we saw with the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But this presidential election comes amid wider tensions in the Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Iran has backed Hamas in that fight, has armed Hamas in the past. Meanwhile, there seems to be growing tensions in northern Israel on the Lebanese border. There have been ongoing attacks between Israel and Hezbollah amid the Gaza war. But now there’s a concern that that front may escalate, may push this conflict into a wider regional war. That’s something that Iran would want to see Hezbollah backed, because Hezbollah long has been what it uses to try to checkmate Israel and the wider Middle East. And as all this is going on, you also have to remember that Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are also Iran-backed, are continuing their attacks in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden, which is disrupting traffic up to the Suez Canal and forcing the U.S. Navy to face the most intense combat it’s seen since World War II. So whomever comes in Iran’s presidency next after this election, they’re going to be confronted with all these tensions, and it’s going to be up to them to decide which way they’ll try to bend foreign policy."
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STORYLINE:
In Iran on Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is looking for a successor for his hard-line protégé, President Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash.
While 85-year-old Khamenei has final say on all matters of state, presidents can bend Iran toward confrontation or negotiations with the West.
Associated Press news director Jon Gambrell explains how Iran’s foreign policy will be affected by the election this Friday.
Two hard-liners — former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — are among candidates that include Masoud Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon seen as a reformist who has lined up with supporters of relatively moderate former President Hassan Rouhani.
Amid signs of widespread voter apathy, Khamenei has called for maximum turnout and has issued a veiled warning to Pezeshkian and his allies about relying on the U.S.
Iran has faced economic woes in part due to international sanctions after Trump in 2018 shredded Iran’s nuclear accord struck three earlier with world powers.
Iran has since ramped up enrichment of uranium and now has enough to be able to produce several nuclear weapons.
The Islamic Republic has sought to position itself as a leader of Muslim-world resentment against the West and Israel, which Iran directly attacked for the first time this year.
For years, Iran has backed an array of militant groups, including the Palestinian Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
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