Ali Bagheri-Kani, Iran’s Veteran Nuclear Negotiator, Named Acting FM

Iran’s veteran nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani, a harsh critic of the West, was Monday named acting foreign minister to replace the top diplomat killed in a helicopter crash along with the president.
Bagheri-Kani, 56, had served as deputy to the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who perished along with the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and seven others in the accident.
Bagheri-Kani is considered close to Iran’s ultraconservatives and a member of the inner circle of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who is the father-in-law of Bagheri-Kani’s brother.
The negotiator with the salt-and-pepper beard came to be known to his interlocutors for a soft-spoken composure that often stood in sharp contrast to his uncompromising stance.
“Every time foreigners intervene, under any pretext… their presence interferes with the security and stability of the region,” Bagheri-Kani once said.
The new acting foreign minister has long experience with Iran’s nuclear dossier — the flashpoint issue that has pitted Tehran against major powers and arch foe Israel, who suspect it is seeking the atomic bomb.
Iran struck a landmark nuclear deal in 2015 in Vienna under which it agreed to curb the program in return for sanctions relief, but former US president Donald Trump withdrew from it three years later.
After Iran had agreed the Vienna deal under its moderate President Hassan Rouhani, Bagheri-Kani emerged as one of its main critics, accusing the administration of bowing to the West.
He charged that the deal violated most of Khamenei’s “red lines” by imposing curbs and strict surveillance on the nuclear program, which Iran says is strictly for civilian purposes.
After the US withdrawal and reimposition of sanctions in 2018, Bagheri-Kani accused Rouhani of having “given the West the impression that Iran is very weak.”