Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on the national holiday February 10.
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The decision to bar Khomeini likely serves as pushback against anyone proposing changes to Iran’s clerical leadership after the implementation of a nuclear deal with world powers negotiated by moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s administration. The Assembly of Experts is the body tasked with choosing the next supreme leader, a position now held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivers his speech under a portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during a rally to commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, at the Azadi (Freedom) Sq.in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Friday, Feb. 11, 2016. “The Guardian Council is now more than ever under pressure by the Islamic Republic’s sworn enemies”, the Council said in a statement published on its website on Tuesday. Reformist and moderate candidates have accused the Guardian Council of eliminating rivals.
Half of the council, experts in Islamic law, are appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the other half are civil jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by Parliament. It has disqualified thousands of candidates, majority reformists, from standing in elections to both the assembly and to parliament.
Iran is going to hold the Assembly of Experts and the parliamentary elections simultaneously on February 26.
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, has criticised moves by the Guardian Council to exclude thousands of candidates from the election, saying the decision could undermine the vote’s legitimacy.
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A government official said this week that prominent reformists were among more than 1,400 initially rejected candidates now eligible to contest parliamentary elections later this month.
