It is hard to picture Iran's nuclear talks with world powers without the beaming face of foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who, in reaching a deal, has shown the power of what Iranians call his `smile diplomacy'.
The 55-year old career diplomat led Iran's negotiating team in concluding a deal with world powers in Vienna after almost two years of negotiations, to curb Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
But Zarif, who has spent long spells studying or working in the US, needed the support of President Hassan Rouhani, and the cautious backing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to protect him from domestic opponents whose distrust of the West has characterised Iranian policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"Zarif is the most effective diplomat Iran has had since the revolu tion," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"He is the only man in the world that can have a conversation with (US secretary of state) John Kerry one day and Ali Khamenei the next, and reassure both of them that he shares their end game."
His easy smile and mastery of English helped him build up a rapport with foreign diplomats, particularly Kerry, with whom he is on first-name terms. He also shunned the bombastic and confrontational language that had become the hallmark of the Islamic Republic's officials.
"When Zarif and his team started the negotiations in 2013, the whole atmosphere of the room changed," said John Limbert, former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran.
Zarif 's familiarity with Western culture comes from the time he lived in the US, first from the age of 17 as a student in San Francisco and Denver and subsequently as a diplomat to the UN in New York, where he served as Iranian ambassador from 2002 to 2007.
His seeming ease with Western ways has made him a divisive figure in Iran, and hardliners have lined up to lambast him for speaking so directly to the Islamic Republic's enemies. Secretly filmed footage emerged in May of Zarif arguing furiously in a closed session of parliament with a lawmaker who branded him a traitor.Some hardliners have called him a coward for studying in the US during the 1980s, rather than defending his country in the 1980-88 war with Iraq, in which Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein had Western and Gulf Arab support.
US Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican opposed to a deal, copied the tactic by tweeting at Zarif in April: "you hid in US during Iran-Iraq war while peasants & kids were marched to die".
But Zarif responded by congratulating Cotton on the birth of his son, adding: "Serious diplomacy , not macho personal smear, is what we need."
It was an example of what Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran, calls Zarif 's "zero tension" approach to negotiations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Javad_Zarif
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mohammad+Javad+Zarif
The 55-year old career diplomat led Iran's negotiating team in concluding a deal with world powers in Vienna after almost two years of negotiations, to curb Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
But Zarif, who has spent long spells studying or working in the US, needed the support of President Hassan Rouhani, and the cautious backing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to protect him from domestic opponents whose distrust of the West has characterised Iranian policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"Zarif is the most effective diplomat Iran has had since the revolu tion," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"He is the only man in the world that can have a conversation with (US secretary of state) John Kerry one day and Ali Khamenei the next, and reassure both of them that he shares their end game."
His easy smile and mastery of English helped him build up a rapport with foreign diplomats, particularly Kerry, with whom he is on first-name terms. He also shunned the bombastic and confrontational language that had become the hallmark of the Islamic Republic's officials.
"When Zarif and his team started the negotiations in 2013, the whole atmosphere of the room changed," said John Limbert, former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran.
Zarif 's familiarity with Western culture comes from the time he lived in the US, first from the age of 17 as a student in San Francisco and Denver and subsequently as a diplomat to the UN in New York, where he served as Iranian ambassador from 2002 to 2007.
His seeming ease with Western ways has made him a divisive figure in Iran, and hardliners have lined up to lambast him for speaking so directly to the Islamic Republic's enemies. Secretly filmed footage emerged in May of Zarif arguing furiously in a closed session of parliament with a lawmaker who branded him a traitor.Some hardliners have called him a coward for studying in the US during the 1980s, rather than defending his country in the 1980-88 war with Iraq, in which Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein had Western and Gulf Arab support.
US Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican opposed to a deal, copied the tactic by tweeting at Zarif in April: "you hid in US during Iran-Iraq war while peasants & kids were marched to die".
But Zarif responded by congratulating Cotton on the birth of his son, adding: "Serious diplomacy , not macho personal smear, is what we need."
It was an example of what Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran, calls Zarif 's "zero tension" approach to negotiations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Javad_Zarif
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mohammad+Javad+Zarif
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