Former president to join Iran ballot

TEHRAN, Iran – Former president Mohammad Khatami, who for two terms led failed attempts to give Iranians more legal freedoms and end Iran’s international isolation, has decided to run in upcoming elections, aides, political allies and family members said Tuesday.

The move will pit Khatami against the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an electoral battle whose outcome could alter the course of the country’s domestic and foreign agendas.

“He has agreed to become a candidate,” Mohammad Reza Khatami, the former president’s younger brother, told the Washington Post. “He sees the difficulties ahead, but the pressure from several groups for him to run was too big for him to decline.”

Mohammad Atrianfar, an official during Khatami’s 1997-2005 tenure, said Tuesday that Khatami would announce his candidacy “in the coming week.”

While President Barack Obama has promised “direct, tough diplomacy” with Iran, several analysts have suggested the administration wait until after the elections, set for June 12.

“This will be a full-fledged confrontation between totalitarians and reformists,” Atrianfar said of the political strains represented by Ahmadinejad and Khatami. He said the matchup would lead to the “most interesting and sensitive elections of the past three decades.”