Ali Akbar Nategh-Nuri


Ali Akbar Nategh-Nuri is an Iranian politician, who served as the 3rd Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran from 1992 to 2000. He was also the Minister of the Interior of Iran from 1981 to 1985.

Early life

Nuri was the son of Abul Qasim Natiq Nuri. He came to Tehran at the age of 10 with met Ruhollah Khomeini in 1961 and joined the ranks of the opponents of the government of that time. He went to prison several times and was banned from the pulpit. Nuri has a seminary education up to the level of jurisprudence and principles. He also received a bachelor's degree in theology from Tehran University. Among his professors, we can mention Ruhollah Khomeini, Morteza Motahari, Ahmad Mojtahedi Tehrani and Mohammad Taghi Falsafi.

Career

Nuri was the interior minister of the Islamic Republic. He served as the Chairman of the Parliament from 1992 to 2000. He was a candidate in the 1997 Iranian presidential election. He was Khamanei's preferred candidate, but he lost the election to Muhammad Khatami. He was given nearly seven million votes, whereas Khatami twenty million votes. He served as an advisor to Iran's supreme leader until his resignation in 2017. He has been a supporter of President Hassan Rouhani and a critic of former Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He officially visited Egypt in 2010. He was the first person to travel to Europe at the level of the heads of the three branches of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Remarks

Nuri was at the center of an international dispute in 2009 after he referred to Bahrain as Iran's 14th province. Bahrain paused negotiations with Iran regarding gas imports in response, and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf condemned the remarks. The Iranian foreign minister immediately commented on the controversy and stated that Nuri's remarks about the history of Bahrain had been misinterpreted by the media and that Iran respected Bahrain's sovereignty. Nuri himself told Al Jazeera that his remarks about the history of the region had been misunderstood and that his comment was not relevant to today's Iran-Bahrain relationship.