Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi

(1934- )

   Ali Akbar Raf-sanjani served as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1989 to 1997. Although he was a relative moderate, Iran carried out two high-profile assassinations of prominent Iranian Kurdish leaders abroad during Rafsanjani's rule: Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (Vienna in 1989) and Sadiq Sharafkindi (Berlin in 1992). Kordestan was the only Iranian province that did not give the majority of its vote to Rafsanjani when he was reelected in 1993.

   On the other hand, Iran accepted over 1.5 million Iraqi Kurdish refugees after the failure of their uprising in 1991. Rafsanjani criticized the West for its initial meager response to the refugee crisis. During Rafsanjani's term, Iran also continued to give covert support to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a way to balance Turkey. Iran also continued to compete with Turkey for influence within the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq after 1991. On several occasions Iranian troops also intervened in northern Iraq, most notably in the summer of 1996 to support the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in its internecine struggle against the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

   Although Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated him in the presidential elections of 2005, Rafsanjani continues to play an important role in Iranian government. In 2007, he was elected to head the Assembly of Experts, which monitors the performance of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while in Iran's disputed presidential elections of June 2009—which the Iranian Kurds largely boycotted—he threw his support to Mir Hossein Mousavi.