Iran's New President Rouhani Takes Office

The new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has taken an oath of office, calling for an end to sanctions placed on the country over its nuclear stance.

Mr Rouhani was sworn in before parliament in Tehran and began naming a cabinet he said would be chosen from figures across the political spectrum.

He formally took office on Saturday at a ceremony in which he received the endorsement of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who retains the final say on all strategic issues.

During his speech to parliament he said the only way to interact with Iran was through dialogue and not sanctions, alluding to the stand-off with world powers over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Mohammad Nahavandian has been appointed as the president's chief of staff

"The only path to interact with Iran is through negotiations on equal grounds, reciprocal trust-building, mutual respect and reducing hostilities," the new president said.

His first appointment was a US-educated businessman as his chief of staff, in a move that it likely to be seen as good for relations with America and other Western powers.

The state IRNA news agency said Mr Rouhani had named Mohammad Nahavandian, a 58-year-old businessman with a doctorate in economics from George Washington University in Washington as his new right hand man.

Other appointments to his cabinet were Iran's former ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Javad Zarif as foreign minister and Bijan Zanganeh to the post of oil minister.

Mr Rouhani was elected with a wide margin over conservative rivals in June, in a win that has been interpreted as a rejection by the electorate of the Iranian regime's hardline approach.

He has pledged to pursue less confrontational policies abroad in order to ease international sanctions on Iran's economy over its disputed nuclear programme.

The Iranian economy has been suffering its worst crisis in a generation as economic sanctions placed on it by the west have cut its access to oil revenues in the midst of a worldwide slump.

Hassan Rouhani succeeds Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

He also has to try to balance the demands of hardliners who dominate parliament and the officially sidelined reformists whose support helped him win the election.

For all his rhetoric on cooperation, the new president is very much an insider in the Islamic Republic, having served in senior military and security roles since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mr Rouhani succeeds Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose turbulent two-term presidency was marked by frequent outbursts against Israel in particular, as well as other countries.

Mr Rouhani suggested on Friday he was not deviating from his predecessor's position when he took a swipe at the Jewish state during a rally marking the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casting his ballot

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out in response, saying: "The president of Iran said ... that Israel is a wound on the body of Islam. The president of Iran may have been changed but the aims of the regime there have not.

"Iran's intention is to develop a nuclear capability and nuclear weapons, with the aim of destroying the state of Israel."

Western governments suspect that Iran's nuclear programme is a cover for a drive for weapons capability. Iran insists it is for power generation and medical purposes only.

Both the United States and Israel - which has the Middle East's sole, if undeclared, nuclear arsenal - have refused to rule out a resort to military action to prevent Iran developing a weapons capability.

Saudi Arabia denied permission for a plane carrying Sudanese President Omar al Bashir to travel through its airspace on Sunday for the swearing-in of the new Iranian president. The aircraft had to turn back.

The Sudanese leader, an alleged war criminal, was travelling to attend President Hassan Rouhani's swearing-in. The prime minister of Syria and North Korea's ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong-Nam, were also invited.

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