TEHRAN- Top Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Wednesday formally registered as a candidate for the June 17 presidential elections, pledging to save the country from "extremists".
But the pragmatic conservative, seen as a clear frontrunner in the race to replace incumbent reformist President Mohammad Khatami, also moved to dismiss any suggestion of tensions at the top of the regime.
"I have always been against extremists," Rafsanjani told reporters after completing his application at the interior ministry.
"If I am elected, there will be people in my government from all tendencies," said 70-year-old Rafsanjani, seen as a figure who favours closer ties with the West and eager to liberalise the Islamic republic's economy.
When asked if he had spoken to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before deciding to launch his presidential bid, Rafsanjani simply replied that the nation's number-one "does not intervene regarding personalities".
"In any case, we see each other regularly," Rafsanjani added, in an apparently coded response to speculation that Khamenei has been opposed to his election bid.
Rafsanjani told reporters that "Iran can have a positive influence in the region and prevent extremism" and he also weighed into ongoing nuclear tensions by urging "patience" on both sides.
"There is not an impasse. The situation is difficult, but the only solution is to continue with the negotiations," he said. "The Europeans should be patient and we should be patient in building confidence."
His comments came as Iran appeared determined to back away from a November 2004 deal with Britain, France and Germany and end its suspension of some nuclear activities linked to the sensitive process of enriching uranium.
Iran's fuel cycle ambitions are the focus of international fears the country may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons, and a move by Iran to violate the accord could see the country referred to the UN Security Council.
Also registering their candidacies Wednesday, the second of five days that the interior ministry will be open to would-be presidents, were reformist outsider Mustafa Moin and one of several hardline candidates, Mohsen Rezai.
Moin, a former higher education minister and member of Iran's increasingly isolated main reformist party, complained that his campaign was likely to be hampered by "a discrimination in media coverage and of financial means".
He also warned that an "absence of massive participation" in the June polls "could create problems for the democratic process" in the 26-year-old theocracy.
After registering, would-be candidates will go through a tough screening process overseen by the Guardians Council -- an unelected hardline-controlled body that has the power to decide whose names can go on the ballot sheet.
Ahead of Iran's parliamentary elections in 2004, the Guardians Council rejected 2,000 candidates, almost all of them reformists. Prior to the last presidential election in 2001, the Council accepted just 10 names out of 814.
Moin has in the past been at odds with the Guardians Council and risks being disqualified.
Rezai, a 51-year-old former head of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, also registered -- despite concerns in the hardline camp that their spread of several candidates could damage their chances.
"I will not forfeit for anyone else," Rezai told reporters as he signed up. He also pledged to create "a power in the region", "fight injustice and cut off the polluted hands which plague the economy."
Political newcomer and populist former national police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has yet to register. Informal polls have placed him a distant second to Rafsanjani.

05/11/2005 13:27 GMT