Iran\u2019s 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.
\nBagheri-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.
\nBagheri-Kani is considered close to Iran\u2019s ultraconservatives and a member of the inner circle of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who is the father-in-law of Bagheri-Kani\u2019s brother.
\nThe 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.
\n\u201cEvery time foreigners intervene, under any pretext… their presence interferes with the security and stability of the region,\u201d Bagheri-Kani once said.
\nThe new acting foreign minister has long experience with Iran\u2019s nuclear dossier — the flashpoint issue that has pitted Tehran against major powers and arch foe Israel, who suspect it is seeking the atomic bomb.
\nIran 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.
\nAfter 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.
\nHe charged that the deal violated most of Khamenei\u2019s \u201cred lines\u201d by imposing curbs and strict surveillance on the nuclear program, which Iran says is strictly for civilian purposes.
\nAfter the US withdrawal and reimposition of sanctions in 2018, Bagheri-Kani accused Rouhani of having \u201cgiven the West the impression that Iran is very weak.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s 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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22498,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22494\/revisions\/22498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}