MOSCOW SAYS IRANIAN ELECTION AN INTERNAL AFFAIR

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 001649 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/23/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL IR RS SUBJECT: MOSCOW SAYS IRANIAN ELECTION AN INTERNAL AFFAIR REF: YEKATERINBURG 36 Classified By: Acting Political Counselor David Kostelancik for reasons 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (U) Moscow has steered clear of the controversy over Iran's June 12 Presidential election, waiting until June 22 for the MFA to release a brief statement declaring the election a "purely internal affair." The statement did acknowledge that the election was being "challenged by other contenders" for the Presidency, who had the support of "certain portions of Iranian society." This situation had led to a dispute over the election outcome that should be resolved in accordance with Iranian law. Until the release of this statement, official Russian reaction to the election had been limited to DFM Ryabkov's June 15 comment to reporters covering the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Yekaterinburg, to whom he said that the "elections are an internal affair of the Iranian people." Ryabkov also welcomed the "newly elected President" of Iran to Yekaterinburg, where Ahmadinejad gave a June 16 address to the SCO summit and had a short meeting with Medvedev (reftel). ¶2. (C) MFA Iran Section Chief Maxim Baranov told us on June 22 that Medvedev and Ahmadinejad met for only ten minutes on the margins of the SCO summit. They had been scheduled for a one-and-a-half hour meeting on June 15 that was to have covered a range of bilateral and regional issues, until Ahmadinejad delayed his arrival because of the situation at home. DFM Ryabkov separately told a visiting U.S. delegation that Medvedev had "some major issues to discuss" with Ahmadinejad, and the GOR was disappointed that the longer meeting had not taken place. ¶3. (C) Despite the GOR's official line on the Iranian election, Baranov said that some MFA officials were troubled by what appeared to be voting irregularities in Iran, such as reports that Ahmadinejad had won majority Azeri regions over his ethnically Azeri opponent, former PM Mousavi. Baranov did not think that possible irregularities meant that Ahmadinejad had lost the election, but that he may not have won by as large a margin as Iranian authorities claimed. Furthermore, Baranov said that MFA officials were "not satisfied" with FM Mottaki's June 20 remarks to assembled Ambassadors to Iran, when he denied that any voting irregularities had occurred and praised Iran as more democratic than other countries. Mottaki also took the UK to task for what he claimed was its meddling in Iranian domestic affairs, an extremely "impolite" gesture before the other Ambassadors, in Baranov's estimation. He added that whereas London and Paris had been particularly critical of Tehran, he thought Washington's comparative restraint was the right approach. ¶4. (C) Baranov explained that Moscow maintained "good" relations with Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani, and other Iranian leaders, and could work with any of them. He thought that Iranian authorities would not arrest Mousavi in order to avoid stirring up more protests or a threatened general strike. BEYRLE