Tehran, Iran – The Iranian presidential candidates clashed again in their third and final televised debate – this time more publicly, especially on the country’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers and US sanctions.

These seven people—five conservatives and hardliners, one moderate and reformer—used Saturday’s slightly improved “debate” format to talk more directly and in more detail about the corruption and misleading that they believed led the country astray. Management.

After most candidates criticized the first two unmoderated debates and saw that they did not answer the same question, the national television station started the final activity by asking all participants a question-a question about the people.

Several candidates discussed the need to overhaul the government’s management style in addition to fighting corruption and supporting marginalized Iranians — again without providing many details on how their plans will actually be implemented.

But most notably, it has spent more on the nuclear agreement or the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA) and the severe sanctions that the United States has imposed since 2018 when former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the landmark agreement. time.

In the first two debates, this issue has been largely ignored because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last month that foreign policy is not one of the “main problems of the people”.

But Abdul Nasser Hemmati, the moderate candidate who had led the central bank before being fired for president earlier this month, severely criticized the internal political forces opposed to the JCPOA.

“What happens if power falls into the hands of hardliners?” He directly asked Ebrahim Raisi, who leads the judiciary and is considered a leader in opinion polls.

“I have no reservations to say that there will be more internationally agreed new sanctions,” he said when referring to the period before the Iran nuclear agreement, when Iran was under multilateral sanctions.

The technologist warned that Raisi and other like-minded politicians did not want to lift the sanctions because it would cut off the domestic power that profited from them, and said, “All the time, you have acted hard in Trump’s courts. which performed.”

He also criticized those who oppose working with the Intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to approve the remaining legislation to complete the Iran Financial Transparency Action Plan.

‘Flip the table’

In response, Raisi stated that he will continue to work on JCPOA like any other state agreement.

However, he stated that the effective implementation of the agreement requires a “strong” government, adding that the outgoing government of Moderate President Hassan Rouhani is not the case.

Regarding FATF-currently only Iran and North Korea are included in the blacklist of non-cooperative countries-he said that he does not support it because it cannot guarantee “our country’s interests.”

Former senior nuclear negotiator Said Jalili and former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezai both stated that their potential government would “make the enemy regret” sanctions Iran by increasing local production. And “removal” of sanctions.

“JCPOA is a bad check,” Jalili said, while Rezaei said that when the United States violated the agreement and tried to use sanctions to make demands on Iran, Iran must “turn the table, or at least beat the table.”

Nuclear negotiation

As the candidates criticized each other, the sixth round of talks to resume JCPOA began in Vienna. As Iran refused to meet directly with Washington, the world’s major powers continued to engage in shuttle diplomacy with US representatives.

Before the Iranian presidential election, it seems unlikely that an agreement will be reached to restore the agreement. At the same time, the agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to continue monitoring its nuclear facilities has been extended by one month, which will end on June 24.

Russia’s top negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, said in a tweet on Saturday, “All of us want to do this as soon as possible, but the quality of the resulting documents comes first.”

One day ago, the senior negotiators of Iran and the United States had a dispute on Twitter. Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Aragech slammed Robert Marley’s “crocodile tears”. He said he was against the political prisoner Sassan Nick. Nafas’ death under suspicious circumstances was “sad” in an Iranian prison.

“Economic terrorism during a pandemic is a crime against humanity,” he wrote when referring to US sanctions.

A TV in a store in Tehran, Iran, shows the presidential candidate debate [Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters]

Candidate opposes disqualification

At the same time, Iran will soon open polling stations because criticism of the widespread disqualification of reformist and moderate candidates continues.

On Saturday, Ali Larijani, the adviser to the Supreme Leader and the speaker of the first three parliaments, is a pragmatist who is expected to pose the biggest challenge to Raisi. He protested against the cancellation of the constitutional review body known as the Guardianship Council. His qualifications.

He said in a statement that the ruling of the supreme leader gave him the right to know the reasons for his disqualification, especially the reports about his daughter living and studying abroad proved to be wrong. Larijani called on the tough committee to make his reasoning public.

Committee spokesman Abbas Ali Kadhoday responded quickly, stating in a tweet that the disqualification was “decided on the basis of sufficient and reliable evidence and documents, and there is no provision in the presidential election rules to predict any provisions to protest” Disqualify and disclose the reason behind it.

A well-known former presidential candidate and opposition leader also criticized the 2021 election.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi (Mir-Hossein Mousavi) tried to prevent the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from being re-elected, leading to the failure of the 2009 Green Movement protests. People who endure “humiliating and well-designed elections” stand together.

Mousavi, who has been under house arrest without trial since the widespread protests, warned that the continued existence of the Guardianship Council’s current monitoring methods may render the title of “Islamic Republic” meaningless for the country.

The upcoming elections are expected to be characterized by low turnout due to public disappointment. Some opinion polls show that the turnout rate is below 40%-which will be the lowest level since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 in the country.

The criticized debate is also unlikely to arouse public excitement, because polls show that less than four in ten Iranians watched the first two debates.