Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri

Nateq-Nouri was the interior minister of the Islamic Republic.[3] He served as the Chairman of the Parliament from 1992 to 2000. He was a candidate in the Iranian presidential election in 1997.[4][5] He was Khamanei's preferred candidate, but he lost the election to Mohammad Khatami.[6] He was given nearly seven million votes, whereas Khatami twenty million votes.[7] He served as an advisor to Iran's supreme leader until his resignation in 2017.[8] He is a supporter of President Hassan Rouhani and was a critic of former Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He officially visited Egypt in 2010.[8]

Nateq-Nouri was at the center of an international dispute in 2009 after he referred to Bahrain as Iran's 14th province. Bahrain paused negotiations with Iran regarding gas imports in response, and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf condemned the remarks.[9] The Iranian foreign minister immediately commented on the controversy and stated that Nateq-Nouri's remarks about the history of Bahrain had been misinterpreted by the media and that Iran respected Bahrain's sovereignty.[9][10] Nateq-Nouri himself told Al Jazeera that his remarks about the history of the region had been misunderstood and that his comment was not relevant to today's Iran-Bahrain relationship.[11]