TEHRAN: Iran’s Interior Ministry has approved a new hard-line mayor for the capital, Tehran, after a city council election.

Alireza Zakani, 55 heads a parliamentary research center, and he was one of the seven approved 2021 presidential candidates.

He withdrew from the race to support the eventual winner, fellow hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi.

Zakani previously served as a lawmaker. He was also the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s volunteer unit at Tehran University in 1999.

Zakani replaces Pirouz Hanachi, an architecture professor at the Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University. He had also previously served as the deputy mayor for urban development.

16 killed in bus plunge

Iran’s state TV said 16 people were killed and 12 injured in the country’s west when a mini-bus plunged off a road into a valley. The accident happened in the Kurdish province of the Kordestan region on Thursday.

According to the report, 12 injured people were taken to hospital in Sanandaj city.

The country’s emergency organization deployed a rescue helicopter and an ambulance bus, as well as six ambulances to the scene.

AP