Iran Celebrates Election by Ending Nuclear Talks
Hardliners in the Iranian regime celebrated victory in parliamentary elections by toughening their stance against the West, firmly rejecting any possibility of talks over the country’s controversial nuclear program.
Buoyed by the early results from Friday’s parliamentary elections, the government said talks with the group of five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany were at an end.
The statement will come as a blow to those who believed the group could still broker a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, but reflects the strength of the conservative vote.
With more than half the results counted for the 290 seat parliament, conservatives had taken a 108 to 33 seat lead over their reformist opponents.
If the results are repeated in the remaining seats, it would mark a significant victory for the hardliners aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
After months of jostling for position among the ranks of rival conservatives, the IRGC is now poised to take over from Iran’s clerics as the dominant force in the country’s parliament.