Iran president-elect Raisi warns over nuclear talks

, International

International Desk | 2023-08-23 22:48:35

Iran's president-elect has welcomed the negotiations with world powers aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal but said they must guarantee national interests.

At his first news conference since his victory in Friday's election, Ebrahim Raisi promised he would not allow the talks in Vienna to be dragged out.

He also insisted that Iran's ballistic missile programme was "not negotiable".

The nuclear deal has been close to collapse since the US abandoned it and reinstated sanctions three years ago.

Raisi, a hard-line Shia Muslim cleric who is head of Iran's judiciary and is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, won Friday's election by a landslide, with 62% of the vote in the first round.

However, turnout was just under 49% - a record low for a presidential poll in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution - following calls for a boycott from dissidents and some reformists in response to the disqualification of several prominent candidates who might have provided serious competition.

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