FROM TEHRAN WITHOUT LOVE
Iran’s foreign minister explains why nuclear talks are likely to succeed — but won’t end animosity with the U.S.,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, 55, is relaxed and cheerful during an interview in his office in Tehran, telling jokes in perfect English. He studied political science in the United States before becoming Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations. Since 2013, he has served as foreign minister under President Hassan Rouhani.
He recently negotiated the preliminary agreement in the country’s nuclear dispute with the international community. He is well-liked by his Western negotiating partners and a star in his home country, where his autobiography is a bestseller. Some see a future president in the making, but he smiles and shrugs off the suggestion. “Domestic policy is not for me,” he says.
You literally had people dancing in the streets when you announced on April 2 that a solution to the nuclear conflict was in sight. At the same time, neither side was able to agree on a joint fact sheet. Did people party prematurely?
It is the right of the people to be happy and it is the responsibility of the government to make people happy. What happened in Lausanne (Switzerland) was an important milestone, but it wasn’t a deal. I believe that a deal is not only possible, but probable.
The United States released its fact sheet of the key points of the negotiations in order to show that it didn’t make major concessions. We assume you weren’t thrilled about this, right?
I do not believe that the practice of producing fact sheets is a very useful one. The world has gone through a significant change. You cannot pick and choose your audience anymore. In the past, you could present your version of reality, your narrative to your audience, and the other side could have presented their narrative to their audience. But today in the age of the Internet and social media, narratives become global — and that’s where the problem comes. So you need to be able to present the final, complete package.
What are the most difficult points at the moment?
Basically everything, because you need to write down all the agreements in terms that are acceptable to at least eight parties sitting at the negotiating table: Iran, the P5 plus 1 — the United States, China, Russia, France, Great Britain, Germany — plus the European Union. So we have seven on one side and Iran on the other. But even the seven do not necessarily agree on everything. Most of our time is taken up by negotiations among the P5 plus 1, because they have to come up with a single position. On some issues they still do not have a common position.
A stumbling block is that you are insisting that military sites cannot be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
We have said that if we do reach an agreement, Iran will be prepared within its own domestic legal system to implement an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Obviously, no country provides open access to its secret facilities. And all international treaties take care of how you deal with your state secrets. I do not believe Iran has any difficulty with accepting international transparency standards. Again, I believe there is an insistence on a certain narrative that some people want to put forward — that gives rise to a reaction from our officials here in Tehran.
That includes the statements made by religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He says he is concerned about the result in Lausanne and warns that “the other side could stab us in the back.” Have you not been able to dispel his concerns?
We are all concerned about the sincerity and seriousness of our Western negotiating partners, particularly the United States. The level of distrust is huge and it’s mutual.
Do you worry that conservatives in Iran might hinder an agreement? Or are they perhaps useful to you, because you can always say something can’t be done because the hardliners won’t go along with it?
I wish that it was something that was totally arranged, so I wouldn’t have to go through the suffering, pain and agony of trying to convince our hardliners.
Anti-American sentiment is one of the pillars of the revolution. “Death to the USA” was the hardliners’ most important slogan for 35 years. Would a nuclear deal also mean that Iran would have to reconsider its position toward the “Great Satan”?
This deal is a litmus test of the degree to which the United States is willing to abandon the illusion of regime change in Iran, the illusion of animosity and antagonism toward the Iranian people and Iran’s revolution.
Is Ayatollah Khamenei ready for a rapprochement?
We’re not talking about rapprochement. We will have differences with the United States no matter what. The United States and Iran have different world views. We will not abandon ours. It’s a part of our identity, but that identity does not require conflict.
We have a single issue that we are addressing with the United States, and that is the nuclear issue. If we can successfully address this, then that will provide a basis to consider whether we can deal with other issues.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the Americans would not sit back and allow Yemen and the Middle East to be destabilized without taking action. He’s referring to Iran when he speaks of such destabilization.
The source of instability in this region is a short-sighted attempt to arm and finance extremist groups like Daesh (the Islamic State group), the Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda. Everybody who has used extremists in our region has fallen victim to them. The West is a part of this problem, because something is happening in Western societies where you get a Western-born, Western-educated person beheading innocent human beings in Iraq or Syria or setting them on fire and burning them alive. Why is this happening in this region? Why are these people being recruited?
Iran and the United States could work together officially in terms of fighting the Islamic State.
We have not seen a serious readiness on the part of the United States yet to deal with Daesh seriously. But this is a regional problem and a global problem and we are prepared to work with all countries in the region in order to fight this menace. We believe any serious global attempt to deal with this will have Iran as a significant partner.
At the same time, you are supporting the regime of Bashar Assad with fighters, money and weapons. By doing so, you are prolonging the Syrian tragedy.
We are supporting the legitimate government of Syria. If we had not provided that support, you would have had Daesh sitting in Damascus now.
Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan are all failed states, in which Iran’s influence has greatly increased. What are you doing to assuage your neighbours’ fears that your country is seeking dominance in the Middle East?
Iran is a powerful country. Iran is a big country with a large population, natural resources, human resources. But we are a country that is content with its size, content with its geography. We have not engaged in any military adventures in the past 250 years. We don’t see any of this as Iran trying to dominate this region.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.