One of Iran's most experienced and internationally respected diplomats has broken the silence that has enveloped Tehran since the outbreak of war.
Mohammad Javad Zarif © Mena Today
One of Iran's most experienced and internationally respected diplomats has broken the silence that has enveloped Tehran since the outbreak of war.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, foreign minister from 2013 to 2021 and the principal architect of the 2015 nuclear agreement, has publicly called on Iran to negotiate a peace settlement with the United States, the first senior Iranian figure to do so since hostilities began on February 28.
In a newspaper column that carries the full weight of his diplomatic credentials, Zarif argued with notable directness: Tehran must "conclude a deal" with Washington. The price of that deal, he suggested, would involve two of the most politically charged concessions imaginable in the current Iranian context, meaningful restrictions on the nuclear programme, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Zarif is not just any former official. Educated in the United States, fluent in English, and long regarded as a pragmatist - or, in the highly charged language of Iranian politics, a "moderate" - he spent decades as the face of Iranian diplomacy that the West could engage with.
His negotiation of the JCPOA in 2015 represented the high-water mark of Iranian diplomatic opening. When he speaks, the world listens. And when he speaks on peace, Tehran cannot entirely ignore him.
He no longer holds any official position. That is precisely what makes his intervention remarkable. Freed from the constraints of office, he has chosen this moment, the most dangerous in Iran's recent history, to say publicly what many in Tehran's pragmatist camp may be thinking privately: this war cannot be won, and the cost of continuing it is becoming unbearable.
Lebanon's Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar ordered Thursday the removal of pro-Iran banners that had been displayed along the road leading to Beirut's international airport, the country's most visible gateway to the world.
The biggest casualty of the U.S.-Iran deal may not be Israel's Iran strategy, but the political brand Benjamin Netanyahu spent decades building as the Israeli leader who could uniquely bend Washington to his will on Iran, analysts, former U.S. officials and diplomats say.
Senior Israeli and Lebanese officials denied on Thursday that there had been any Israeli withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanon, after a U.S. official said Israel had pulled some troops back in a good faith gesture toward Lebanon's government.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
