COMMENTATOR SAYS 'ANTIWESTERN' IRANIAN PRESIDENT GOOD FOR RUSSIA
Political analyst Yegor Kholmogorov said on Radio Mayak on 27 June that the victory in Iran of ultraconservative and "anti-Western" presidential candidate Mahmud Ahmadinejad is beneficial for Russia as it will bring "not only strategic, but commercial advantages." He added that "Ahmadinejad is a convinced supporter of the development of the Iranian nuclear program and, therefore, [of] cooperation with Russia." Kholmogorov added that Ahmadinejad never would have won the election against Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani without the "shadow" support of the Islamic clerics and the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As a result of the election, Iran's old religious elite has managed to transfer power to a new one, embodied by Ahmadinejad, Kholmogorov said. He called the transfer of power the "Iranian variant of [the Russian] operation 'Successor,'" in reference to how President Boris Yeltsin transferred power to Putin in 2000. VY
(RFE/RL Newsline, June 28)
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