Iranian top diplomat: Khamenei succession possible within two days

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi believes it is possible that a new spiritual leader will be appointed in Iran within days.

“Maybe in one or two days they will elect a new leader for the country,” Araghchi told the news channel Al-Jazeera on Sunday, “everything is on order.”

Araghchi condemned the killing of the previous head of state and religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the US-Israeli attacks as “absolutely unprecedented and a violation of international law.”

Until a new head of state is elected, a three-member council is to take over his duties.

According to official information, this role will fall to President Masoud Pezeshkian, head of the Judiciary Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Eje’i, and the member of the Guardian Council, Alireza Arafi.

A so-called Council of Experts, a committee of 88 influential clerics, is responsible for the election.

It is unclear who could succeed Khamenei, and the religious leader had not commented publicly on the matter. In recent years, his son Modshtaba, who has hardly ever been in the public eye, has been mentioned time and again as a possible candidate.

However, the state apparatus is likely to find it difficult to reorganize the power structure in the middle of a war.