Saeed Jalili, hard-line former negotiator, seeks Iran's presidency

Hard-line Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili may have been Tehran's top nuclear negotiator for years, but he won no plaudits from Western diplomats sitting across the table as he repeatedly lectured them on everything while offering nothing.

As the weaving of Iranian carpets progresses in millimeter, precise, delicate and durable manner, God willing, this diplomatic process will also proceed in the same way, Jalili said then.

Those hours of lecturing in 2008 stalled talks as hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei advanced the country's nuclear programme. That put pressure on the West that eventually eased with Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Now Jalili, 58, stands on the precipice of being elected as Iran's next president as he faces a runoff election Friday against the little-known reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon. With Iran's nuclear programme enriching urani