HASSAN ROHANI IS THE PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC IRAN

Tehran Jun 15 (Only Kashmir): Moderate candidate Hasan Rowhani will be the next president of Iran after winning over 50 per cent of the vote.

Iran's interior minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said that Rowhani obtained more than half of 36 million votes cast in Friday's election.

Rowhani was the lone moderate candidate in the race and supported by reformists in a race that once appeared solidly in the hands of Tehran's Islamic establishment.

Today Rowhani's supporters took to the streets in celebration of his win.

The vote brings an end to the eight-year era of the combative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose 2009 re-election was steeped in controversy.

Candidates seen as hard-line loyalists included current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Khamenei adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, another conservative candidate who had been running far behind in second place, conceded defeat.

Rowhani has controversially vowed to follow a policy of detente and interaction with the outside world.

A victory by former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani is seen as a setback for Iran's Islamic establishment.

The British Foreign Office said in a statement that it hoped Mr Rowhani would use his victory to engage with international concerns over Iran's nuclear programme and develop a "constructive" relationship with the wider international community.

"We note the announcement that Hassan Rouhani has won the Iranian presidential elections," the statement said.

'We call on him to use the opportunity to set Iran on a different course for the future: addressing international concerns about Iran's nuclear programme, taking forward a constructive relationship with the international community, and improving the political and human rights situation for the people of Iran.'

'We certainly encourage them to,' Psaki said. 'But certainly the history here and what happened just four years ago gives all of us pause.'

Irregularities in the vote count of the 2009 election were Ahmadinejad won led to millions of Iranians protesting the results.

The Supreme Leader did publicly endorse a successor for Ahmadinejad, who had a spectacular falling out with the theocracy over his attempts to challenge Khamenei's near-absolute powers.

The Ayatollah did not reveal who he was voting for when he cast his ballot today.