TEHRAN - Iran's popular former national police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf announced Monday he would run for president in the June election and said he saw no problem resuming ties with archfoe the United States.
"I have appeared here today to say I am ready to run for the ninth presidential election and volunteer to serve the nation," Qalibaf, 43, said at a press conference.
The announcement was widely expected after Qalibaf, a former head of the air force wing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and frontline veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, resigned as police chief earlier this month.
"I am a pragmatist, I believe in basic principles, I am not a rightist nor a fundamentalist," he said. "I have no attachments to any conventional political wings".
Iran will vote on June 17 to find a successor to moderate President Mohammad Khatami, who is just months from the end of his final term in office after taking power in 1997.
Qalibaf said he saw no limitations in resuming relations with the United States, which were severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
"In today's world it is essential to have relations with all the countries. I do not see any limitations in this respect; we have to consider our national interests and use our entire capacity," he said.
Qalibaf said he considered powerful former president and top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani his only potential rival. Rafsanjani is openly mulling standing but has yet to make a formal announcement.
04/11/2005 10:42 GMT