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TEHRAN — Iranians will vote for a new president on June 18 in a poll many see as decided in advance, with ultraconservatives expected to strengthen their grip on power amid record low turnout.

Just seven men have been approved to run — five ultraconservatives and two reformists — to take over from President Hassan Rouhani, who after two four-year terms in a row is constitutionally barred from running again.

With his main rivals excluded from the final list of candidates, judiciary head Ebrahim Raisi is the clear favourite in the 13th presidential poll since Iran's 1979 revolution.

Rouhani took office vowing to seek better ties with the West. But that stance took a severe blow in 2018 when Washington under Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark agreement on Iran's nuclear programme and reimposed biting sanctions.

This year's election coincides with negotiations in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

But a breakthrough appears unlikely before the vote, and both Tehran and Washington have voiced doubts over the prospects of success.

The renewed sanctions have plunged Iran into a deep economic and social crisis, further exacerbated by the pandemic.

Iran saw two waves of winter anti-government protests in the years prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, both of which were harshly put down.

Economic crisis 

In a live televised debate Saturday, Raisi avoided clashing with reformists, instead focusing on Iranians' economic woes.

"Inflation is one of the serious problems people are facing today," along with the "dishonesty of certain officials," he said.

Iran's conservative camp has blamed the reformists for having trusted the West — but Rouhani on Wednesday defended his track record after eight years in office.

"It was the nuclear deal that put the country on the path to [economic] development, and today the solution to the country's problem is for everyone to go back to the deal," he said. "We don't know any other way."

Campaigning kicked off in late May with little fanfare. Few campaign posters are visible in Tehran apart from those of Raisi, who took 38 per cent of the vote in the last election in 2017.

The mood has been dampened by coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings, and observers expect many voters to abstain — something that tends to favour the conservative camp.

Last year's parliamentary elections saw 57 per cent abstention and allowed conservatives to dominate the legislature, after thousands of mostly reformist or moderate candidates were disqualified.

In recent weeks, the Iranian press had widely predicted a showdown between Raisi and moderate conservative Ali Larijani, an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But after the powerful Guardian Council barred Larijani and other heavyweights from the poll, those who remain appear unlikely to pose a serious challenge to the ultraconservative judiciary chief.

'More coherent' 

The office of president has limited powers in Iran, where ultimate power lies with the supreme leader.

Clement Therme, an expert at the European University Institute in Florence, said Iranian leaders hoped this month's election would help make the "regime" more "coherent".

Having taken control of parliament in 2020 and "faced with the impoverishment of the population", conservatives are "now preparing the ground... for a Raisi victory", he said.

He added that other scenarios were unlikely, as rare opinion polls show that less than 40 per cent of the electorate intend to vote.

With opposition groups outside Iran using social media to call for a boycott, Khamenei has urged Iranians to vote in numbers in a show of defiance to the "enemies of Islam".

He also ordered candidates to focus on the economy.

Raisi's challengers include ex-Revolutionary Guards chief Major General Mohsen Rezai and ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

The list also includes reformist ex-vice president Mohsen Mehralizadeh and central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati.

Both are seen as reformists but neither has gained the support of the main reformist coalition.

If no candidate wins an overall majority on June 18, the two with the most votes will go head-to-head in a second-round run-off on June 25.

DAMASCUS — Syria's air defence system has been activated against an "Israeli aggression" in Damascus, state news agency Sana said late Tuesday.

Israeli planes arrived from Lebanese air space, reported Sana, which said there had been "explosions in Damascus".

The news agency gave no indication of any deaths or damage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Israeli air strikes in central Syria killed at least 11 army troops and militiamen late Tuesday."At least seven army soldiers and four National Defence Forces militiamen were killed,"

Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP, adding that all of the dead were Syrian.

The observatory said the strikes targeted air force positions near the village of Khirbet al-Tin on the outskirts of Homs, as well as an arms depot belonging to the Lebanese Hizbollah movement.

The air strikes targeted an area "close to Damascus's international airport, as well as a Syrian air force battalion in the Dumayr region", around 50 kilometres from Damascus, where "explosions took place at arms depots", according to the observatory.

"Air strikes also took place in the south of Homs province" while "explosions were felt in the provinces of Hama and Latakia" in the north and northwest respectively.

"The strikes have led to human losses in Homs, where rescue teams have been despatched to the targeted sites," the observatory said, without giving a toll.

Since the start of the war in neighbouring Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory, allegedly targeting army positions as well as allied Iranian forces and members of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement.

Israel regularly reiterates that it will not allow Syria to become a stronghold of its sworn enemy Iran.

ZARZIS, Tunisia — A cemetery in southern Tunisia for migrants who drowned crossing the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life in Europe is already half full — even before it is formally opened.

Jardin d'Afrique, French for Garden of Africa, is for those who were "the wretched of the sea", said Rachid Koraichi, the Algerian artist and Sufi Muslim who built the cemetery.

These migrants, many of whom drowned after boarding flimsy and overloaded boats while facing extortion from "gangsters and terrorists", deserve a dignified resting place, he said.

“I wanted to give them a first taste of paradise,” 74-year-old Koraichi added.

His art includes sculptures and ceramics embellished with calligraphy, and has been exhibited from Venice to New York.

In 2018, he bought a plot of land to host the cemetery in the southern Tunisian port of Zarzis, near the Libyan border; an area where countless migrants have taken to sea over the years.

More than 200 white graves already fill the cemetery, surrounded by five olive trees to symbolise the five precepts of Islam and 12 vines to represent the 12 apostles who were the first disciples of Jesus.

Vicky, a 26-year-old from Lagos, Nigeria, arrived on foot to Tunisia after several failed bids to reach Italy from Libya.

“Going to Europe was my dream,” she told AFP as she swept the cemetery grounds.

“But trying to get there has been hell.”

The cemetery was formally inaugurated on Wednesday by Audrey Azoulay, head of the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO.

She paid tribute to those “castaways who perished in pursuit of a better life” and to the “universal solidarity of associations, fishermen, navy boats or others, who save lives” on the Mediterranean sea.

“On this sea, inscribed with part of humanity’s history, there unfolds today a tragedy,” she added, mourning those who died “neglected and forgotten”.

Many of those buried there remain nameless for now, and the headstones bear grim and scant information about them.

One is inscribed with the words: “Woman, black dress, Hachani beach”, indicating the location where she was found.

Another reads: “Man, black sweater, Four Seasons Hotel beach”.

“When I see this, I am not certain anymore that I want to make the sea crossing again,” cemetery sweeper Vicky said.

Tunisia and neighbouring Libya are key departure points for migrants, many from sub-Saharan African, who attempt the dangerous crossing from the North African coast to Europe, particularly Italy.

In early May, the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR said that at least 500 people had died trying to cross the central Mediterranean this year, more than triple the 150 in the same period of 2020.

Koraichi, whose brother was swept away by a current while swimming for leisure in the Mediterranean, funded the cemetery by selling some of his artwork.

His brother’s body was never found.

“I wanted to help the families get closure and for them to know that there is a place for a dignified burial” of their loved ones, he said.

“It is also a symbolic place, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” he said, referring to monuments to fallen servicemen that can be found across the world.

A wooden door dating back to the seventeenth century leads into the cemetery where hand-painted ceramics line the ground and fragrant flowers, including jasmin, fill the air with a sweet scent.

A white cupola sits atop a chapel where worshippers from all faiths can pray.

Space has been allocated for a morgue and forensics lab to help identify the dead.

So far only one family from war-torn Libya has visited the cemetery to pray at the graveside of a young relative who had been identified by travel companions.

“We offered to let them take his body home but his father replied ‘God has abandoned Libya, keep him here,’” Koraichi said.

Weekly deaths 

Koraichi is a member of the Tijaniyyah order of Sufism, a spiritual form of Islam, which originated in North Africa before spreading to other parts of the continent.

He chose Zarzis as the place to build the Garden of Africa after learning that authorities in the fishing port were struggling to bury dozens of bodies of migrants that had washed up on its shores.

Municipal workers had buried more than 600 unidentified migrants — from sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and elsewhere — in a sandy, windswept plot near an old city dump.

That burial ground was already full when, in July 2019, another 100 bodies arrived, overwhelming the municipality.

That was when the first graves were dug at the Garden of Africa, even before the work to build the ornate cemetery had started.

Since then, and especially in summer when the number of sea crossings rise, bodies that washed up on the shores of Zarzis and around the region are brought in for burial each week.

Around 200 white bricks mark each empty grave in the cemetery.

Koraichi fears that they will fill up by the end of the summer.

Zarzis Mayor Mekki Lourraiedh said the town itself had emptied over the years, as many young people left by sea seeking jobs and a better life in Europe.

“These migrants remind us of our children,” he said.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — One fine day in May, Yohanna Khushfa gathered his 200 sheep and took off, along with 120 other villagers in Iraqi Kurdistan, fearful of the Turkish drones hunting Kurdish separatists.

"Shrapnel blew out our windows and furniture," the mayor of Jelki, a village in the Al Amadiya area, told AFP.

"We were afraid for our lives and we left," said the 71-year-old, reached by telephone from a rugged strip near the Turkish border.

Since Turkey launched a new military campaign in northern Iraq on April 23, three civilians have been killed and four wounded.

Amongst those, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a senior official from Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

In the face of Turkey's actions, some 1,500 people from 300 families have fled their villages, according to Iraq's ministry for the displaced.

Others already left long ago, among them Berqi Islam, who fled in 2017 from Shiladzi, an area near the border where his brother was killed in Turkish bombing.

With his family's farmland burnt down and no compensation paid by Iraqi Kurdish or federal authorities, he has yet to return.

Erdogan, who has threatened to "clean up" parts of northern Iraq, accuses the PKK of using the mountainous border area as a springboard for its insurgency.

The PKK has waged a rebellion in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey since 1984 that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

'Permanent presence' 

Erdogan is willing to move "Turkey's ongoing military confrontation with the PKK from Turkey to territory the PKK controls or transits through in Iraq," said Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

He said Baghdad and Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan and an ally of Ankara, appear to have accepted this.

The growing Turkish presence in Iraqi Kurdistan “has been evolving into a permanent Turkish presence in the region”, said Erdemir, a former opposition lawmaker in Turkey.

The Iraqi state, tied up with chasing down remnants of the Daesh terror group and often challenged by pro-Iran shiite armed groups “has no means of pressure on the PKK to make it leave”, explained Adel Bakawan, director of the French Centre for Research on Iraq (CFRI).

In a sign of Turkey’s growing confidence, its defence minister visited troops on Iraqi soil in early May, even though the dozen bases and other military posts that the Turkish army has set up over the past quarter of a century are illegal in the eyes of Iraqi law.

Baghdad has summoned the Turkish ambassador several times in protest over Turkey’s military actions, but the bombs continue to fall, taking away 2.5 per cent of Iraq’s forested areas, “an inhuman environmental crime” in the words of Iraqi President Barham Saleh.

‘Setting up their own routes’ 

And the Turkish incursions are getting deeper — up to 20 kilometres inside Iraqi Kurdistan, said Kurdish MP Rivink Muhammad, himself from Al Amadiya.

“Until the latest campaign, Turkish forces were entering through the border posts, but now they are setting up their own routes to avoid the official crossings,” added colleague Ali Saleh.

Ankara, the PKK charges, wants a repeat of the situation in northern Syria, where Turkey has since 2016 conducted three military offensives that have left it in control of more than 2,000 square kilometres.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar on Sunday defended his country’s actions.

“All of our operations only target terrorists, respecting international law and respecting the territorial integrity of our neighbours, particularly Iraq,” he told reporters.

But he warned they would “continue until the last terrorist is neutralised... Our duty is to destroy all of the villains’ nests”.

Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesman, told AFP that Ankara was determined to block any dream of a Greater Kurdistan straddling Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

Turkey’s military forays are “strategic, they aim to occupy Kurdish areas to cut off contacts between the Kurds [of the four countries] and eventually create a security cordon”, he said.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that “hundreds” of US sanctions will remain on Iran even if the United States rejoins a nuclear accord.

President Joe Biden’s administration has been engaged in indirect talks with Iran about reversing former president Donald Trump’s exit from the 2015 nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“I would anticipate that, even in the event of a return to compliance with the JCPOA, hundreds of sanctions remain in place, including sanctions imposed by the Trump administration,” Blinken told a Senate hearing.

“If they are not inconsistent with the JCPOA, they will remain unless and until Iran’s behaviour changes,” he said.

The discussions in Vienna, brokered by European diplomats, have been locked in dispute on which sanctions to lift.

The Biden administration is ready to end the sweeping measures imposed by Trump — including an effort to stop all of Iran’s oil exports — if it reverses the steps away from the nuclear deal that it took to protest the last administration’s sanctions.

But Iran has insisted on a removal of all sanctions — while the Biden administration has insisted that some will remain if they were imposed over other concerns, including human rights and Iran’s support for extremist movements.

Blinken reiterated support for returning to the nuclear accord, with which UN inspectors said Iran was complying before Trump pulled out the United States.

Asked about concerns that Iran did not declare all activities from before the nuclear deal, Blinken said: “Plain and simple, we would be in an even better place to insist on it answering those questions if we had managed to get Iran back into compliance with the JCPOA and if we were part of it, too.”

“But regardless, it needs to answer those questions. It needs to come clean about past activities,” Blinken said.

DAHARKI, Pakistan — At least 43 people were killed and dozens injured Monday when a packed Pakistani inter-city train ploughed into another express that had derailed just minutes earlier, officials said.

Several people were trapped for hours in the mangled wreckage left by the collision near Daharki, in a remote part of rural Sindh province, before rescue workers with specialist equipment could reach them.

Huge crowds from nearby villages gathered around the carnage of the overturned Pakistan Railways carriages, with twisted and shredded metal scattered across the ground, along with piles of luggage.

On Monday evening, army and civil engineers led a mass effort to clear and repair the tracks, with one official saying they hoped the line would be open by midnight.

The double accident happened around 3.30am (2230 GMT) when most of the 1,200 passengers aboard the two trains would have been dozing.

"We tumbled upon each other, but that was not so fatal," Akhtar Rajput, a passenger on the train that derailed, told AFP.

“Then another train hit us from nowhere, and that hit us harder. When I regained my senses, I saw passengers lying around me, some were trying to get out of the coach.”

“I was disoriented and trying to figure out what happened to us when the other train hit,” Shahid, another passenger, told AFP.

The Millat Express was heading from Karachi to Lala Musa when it derailed, its carriages strewn over the tracks as the Sir Syed Express from Rawalpindi arrived minutes later in the opposite direction, smashing into it.

Most of the dead were pulled from the derailed train, officials said.

Umar Tufail, a senior Daharki police officer, said 43 people were killed and dozens injured.

A spokesman for Pakistan Railways put the toll at 33, but communications with the crash site were difficult because its remote location.

One rescue worker described having to stand on top of his vehicle to get a phone signal.

Local farmers and villagers were the first to join passengers in trying to pull survivors from the crumpled carriages, reaching into broken windows and roof hatches.

A clip aired on a local channel showed medics giving an intravenous drip to a conscious passenger whose lower torso was trapped between crushed carriage benches.

The dead were laid out in rows on train seat benches and covered in traditional scarves.

Communication problems 

The accident happened on a raised section of track surrounded by lush farmlands.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid, a former railways minister, said the track where the accident occurred was built in the 1880s and described it as “a shambles”.

Current minister Azam Swati described the section of railway as “really dangerous”, but said authorities had been waiting to upgrade the network with funding from the multibillion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

“In case there is a delay [with funding], we will rebuild this track with our own money,” he said.

The Pakistan army and paramilitary rangers from nearby bases were at the site to help.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “shocked” by the accident and promised a full inquiry.

Gul Mohammad, who works with the Edhi Foundation ambulance service, said communication problems were hindering the coordination of the rescue efforts.

“I am talking to you as I stand on the rooftop of my ambulance for better signal,” he told AFP.

Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where the network has seen decades of decline due to corruption, mismanagement and lack of investment.

The majority of train passengers in Pakistan are working-class people who cannot afford the quicker bus journeys.

More than 300 people were killed and 700 injured in 1990 when an overloaded 16-carriage inter-city train crashed into a stationary freight train near the city of Sukkur in Sindh.

More recently, at least 75 people died when a train caught fire while travelling from Karachi to Rawalpindi in October 2019.

The rest of the transport sector does not fare much better, with two major passenger plane crashes in the past five years and thousands of road accidents.

VIENNA/ WASHINGTON — The UN nuclear watchdog's head said Monday it was "becoming increasingly difficult" to extend a temporary inspections arrangement with Iran, as Tehran and world powers try to salvage a nuclear deal.

In February, Tehran suspended some IAEA inspections, leading the agency to strike a temporary three-month deal allowing it to continue its activities despite the reduced level of access.

"I can see this space narrowing down," International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] Director General Rafael Grossi told journalists in Vienna at the beginning of the quarterly meeting of the IAEA's board of governors.

In late May the ad hoc arrangement was extended until June 24, with Grossi describing the remaining time as "very short".

Referring to negotiations underway in central Vienna between world powers and Tehran on the possible revival of the international 2015 deal on Iran's nuclear programme, Grossi said he hoped that by "wider general agreement that's being worked on downtown or by some other means, we are not going to see our... inspection capacities curtailed any more".

"We cannot limit and continue to curtail the ability of the inspectors to inspect and at the same time pretend that there is trust," he said.

He also referred to a long-running attempt by the IAEA to get clarity on several undeclared Iranian sites where nuclear activity may have taken place, mostly in the early 2000s.

In April the IAEA launched a new process of "technical discussions" with Iran in an effort to "break the impasse" over the sites.

But a report issued last week made clear that the IAEA's queries had not been resolved.

Grossi said Monday that his "expectations were not met" and that there had been no "concrete progress" on the issue, despite the Iranian authorities' stated willingness to cooperate.

"Talk must lead to conclusions," he said.

While stressing that the issue of the undeclared sites and the broader talks to revive the 2015 deal were not directly connected, Grossi underscored the importance of trust.

“This is where everything you do with any country is interconnected,” he said.

“For me the road to trust goes through information, clarification, inspections and full transparency,” he added.

Diplomats are hoping to conclude the talks on reviving the 2015 deal before Iran’s presidential election on June 18.

The deal has been disintegrating ever since former US President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from it in 2018 and went on to re-impose swingeing sanctions on Iran.

In retaliation Iran has been disregarding limits laid down in the deal on its nuclear activities.

Grossi reiterated on Monday that the situation in Iran was “serious”.

“We have a country that has a very developed and ambitious nuclear programme which is enriching at very high levels... very close to weapons grade,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States said on Monday it was not even sure if Tehran really wanted to come back into compliance.

“We’ve been engaged in indirect conversations, as you know, for the last couple of months, and it remains unclear whether Iran is willing and prepared to do what it needs to do to come back into compliance,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“We’re still testing that proposition,” Blinken said.

“We’re not even at the stage of returning to compliance for compliance,” Blinken said. “We don’t know if that’s actually going to happen.”