Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said any negotiations with the United States would be "futile" as he delivered his first major speech to the conservative-dominated chamber on May 31.     

Iranian voters will decide the fate of moderate President Hassan Rouhani and his policy of engagement with the West on May 19 as he goes head-to-head with hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Rouhani has spent four years trying to pull Iran out of its global isolation, reaching a 2015 deal with world powers that ended some sanctions in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program.

Iran's reformist former president Mohammad Khatami has skirted a media ban to endorse moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani for a second term over conservative challengers in a May 19 election.

Iran's former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that he won't endorse other candidates in next month's election, after he and his deputy were barred from running.

"We clearly announce that we have not and will not support any candidate in the upcoming elections," he said in a letter, signed by himself and his former deputy and presidential hopeful Hamid Baghaie.

Many firefighters were feared trapped under the rubble after Iran's oldest high-rise, the 15-storey Plasco building in downtown Tehran, collapsed live on TV on Jan. 19, following a fire.