Iran’s new ultraconservative President Ibrahim Raisi takes power on Thursday with the country facing an economy battered by US sanctions, a grinding health crisis and thorny negotiations on the 2015 nuclear deal.
Raisi, 60, will have his work cut out for him on several fronts. Iran has been grappling with a deep economic and social crisis following former US president Donald Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018 and reimpose crushing sanctions.
US sanctions have choked Iran and its vital oil exports, and the economy contracted by more than six percent in both 2018 and 2019.
Raisi’s government would seek to lift "oppressive" sanctions, but would "not tie the nation's standard of living to the will of foreigners", the new president said in his inauguration speech on Tuesday.
Iran is also battling the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, with more than four million cases and upwards of 92,000 deaths.
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