Ebrahim RAISI, Presidential Campaign 2017; Photo’s source: www. Wikipedia.org

On August 4^th, 2021, at a ceremony in front of the Iranian parliament, RAISI was sworn to guard the Iranian constitution and serve his country’s people, becoming the eighth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He promised to pursue the country’s “legal rights” but also not ruling out diplomacy with the West to ease economic sanctions.

“I will dedicate myself to the service of the people, the honor of the country, the propagation of religion and morality, and the support of truth and justice” RAISI said.

In a parliamentary ceremony broadcast live on state television RAISI said, referring to the country’s nuclear program that “The policy of pressure and sanctions will not cause the nation of Iran to back down from following up on its legal rights”.

“We want to stabilize the economy and attain self-sustainability” he said, in his first speech, to Iranian and foreign dignitaries at the Parliament in Tehran.

The President has now two weeks to present his cabinet to the Iranian Parliament, setting the tone for his presidency and giving an indication to world leaders of how his four-year term may play out.

Before the swearing-in ceremony that was attended by representatives of 73 countries, Government offices were closed and police blocked all roads leading to Parliament for security.

In addition to top officials of the country, including the outgoing president, Hassan ROUHANI, the inauguration ceremony was attended by dozens of high-level representatives: Iraqi President Barham SALIH and the speaker of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Parliament, Rivas QAEQ; Syrian Parliament Speaker Hammouda SABBAGH, Afghan president Ashraf GHANI, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol PASHINYAN, Russian Duma Chairman Vyacheslav VOLODIN, Omani Foreign Minister Badr ALBUSAIDI and Hamas leader Ismail HANIYEH.

Lebanon’s Caretaker Agriculture Minister, Abbas MORTADA; Thandi MODOSE, Speaker of the Parliament of South Africa, and Mohammad BARKINDO, Secretary General of OPEC, Algerian Prime Minister Ayman bin Abdul RAHMAN; and a Vatican representative also attended.

Naeem QASSEM, the Vice President of Hezbollah in Lebanon, was also at the ceremony with Mohammad Abdul SALAM, the special envoy of the Houthis in Yemen.

Enrique MORA, EU diplomat and nuclear deal negotiator also attended the event, despite pushback from a number of human rights groups and Israel.

Hossein Amir-ABDOLLHIAN, parliament’s foreign affairs adviser and possibly the next foreign minister, told CNN in an interview that Iran does not plan to curtail its foreign policy.

Iran will have “a foreign policy that is balanced with an eye towards all countries — with a logical and at the same time strong discourse, a discourse that will be able to secure Iranian rights on all fronts,” Amir- ABDOLLHIAN said.

This article was edited using the data from the Timesofisrael.com, Cgtn.com, Aljazeera.com, Presstv.ir, and Edition.cnn.com