Iran's newly-elected President Ebrahim Raisi speaks at a polling station in Tehran, Iran June 18, 2021./ Reuters
Israel on Saturday condemned Iran's newly-elected President Ebrahim Raisi, with the concerns that the hardline judge will quickly advance Teheran's nuclear program, though Raisi has stressed his commitment to the nuclear agreement.
Meanwhile, parties negotiating the revival of the Iran nuclear deal will hold a formal meeting in Vienna on Sunday, the European Union said on Saturday.
A separate statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Raisi's election should "prompt grave concern among the international community" and Israel's new government, sworn in on Sunday, has said it would object to the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and its arch-foe, Iran.
Raisi was elected by the Iranians as their eighth president since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the country's Interior Ministry announced on Saturday.
Born on December 14, 1960 in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Raisi has been acting as the judiciary chief since he was appointed in 2019 by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with the task of enhancing the country's fight against corruption.
In Raisi's victory statement, he said that he will form a "hard-working, anti-corruption and revolutionary" cabinet, adding that he would be president of all those who voted for him, those who didn't vote for him and even those who didn't vote at all.
While Iranian conservatives have been harshly critical of the 2015 nuclear agreement, especially since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, Raisi has stressed his commitment to the agreement.
In the third televised debate of the campaign, he declared that the implementation of the agreement requires an "authoritative" or "powerful government" in Iran.
Raisi's administration will "put back the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on its original track," Raisi's campaign wrote in a foreign policy document published on its official website.