Once an Outcast, Iranian Minister Carries Hope of Easing Tensions

THE NEW YORK TIMES

BY THOMAS ERDBRINK

TEHRAN — Until this summer, Mohammad Javad Zarif, one of Iran’s most accomplished diplomats, was an outcast, exiled from the government by ultraconservatives for working too closely with the West. Rather than presenting the Iranian case to the world, as he had done so effectively throughout a 35-year diplomatic career, he was spending his days teaching at the Foreign Ministry’s training center on a quiet, leafy campus in North Tehran.

That changed with the election of the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, in June. Now, Mr. Zarif is the country’s new foreign minister and seems virtually certain to lead Iran’s delegation in nuclear negotiationswith the West — further indications, analysts say, that Mr. Rouhani is serious about reducing tensions with the United States and other Western countries.

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