More than 300 candidates register for the presidential elections; Pak., Afghan, and Iranian Foreign Ministers meet in Kabul
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    • As the five-day registration period for presidential candidates ended during the week, over 300 people registered themselves to run for the office of the president. These included the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, National Confidence Party leader Mahdi Karrubi, and former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Mohsen Rezai. Though the Iranian constitution does not lay down specific criteria for presidential hopefuls, their candidature is however carefully vetted by the Guardian Council. The Council had recently rejected a bill vote by the lawmakers to set conditions for presidential aspirant nominations. Lawmakers like current Majlis speaker Ali Larijani have criticized the current law which allows even an uneducated farmer to give in his nomination for the post of president, as deficient and a waste of time which also degrades the post and damages Iran’s international reputation. Former president Khatami dropped out of the race in favor of Mousavi. While Mousavi and Karrubi are from the reformist camp, Ahmadinejad and Rezai are from the traditionalist camp1.

    Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, addressing the Pakistan-Afghanistan-
    Iran Ministerial Forum in Kabul, stated that Pakistan had presented a draft joint-declaration on the framework for trilateral cooperation between the countries. This draft framework will be placed before the second trilateral meeting of the heads of states of Economic Coordination Organization when they meet in Tehran in June. The ministerial forum was also attended by Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta of Afghanistan and his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki. The meeting in Kabul discussed a number of regional issues, including strategies to counter terrorism, narcotics and measures to enhance relations between the three countries2.

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