biography
| name: |
Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi
|
pronunciation:
[rafsanjahnee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1934– )
|
| biography:
| Iranian politician and president (1989–97), born in Rafsanjan, C Iran. He supported Ayatollah Khomeini after the latter's exile in 1963, and became a wealthy property speculator in the 1970s. He spent three years in prison (1975–7) for his political activities on behalf of the exiled Khomeini. After the 1979 revolution, he helped to found the ruling Islamic Republican Party, and in 1980 was chosen as Speaker of the Majlis (Lower House), representing the moderates who favour improved relations with the West. He was criticized in Iran for his arms-for-hostages deal with members of the administration of US President Ronald Regan, which also triggered the Iran–Contra scandal in the USA (1986). In the 1980s he was the most influential figure in Iran after Khomeini, and his successor. In office, his policies, particularly in the economic sphere, were more pragmatic. He condemned both the USA and Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991. After the war he strove to renew close ties with the West, although he refused to lift Khomeini's fatwa against the British author Salman Rushdie. |
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