Iran shows its softer side after 'old-school' Rouhani United Nations speech
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Version 0 of 1. The Iran-watching community is in danger of suffering whiplash. After a weeks-long love-bombing campaign conducted by the new Iranian leadership in the run-up to the UN general assembly, President Hassan Rouhani's speech on Tuesday afternoon seemed strikingly old-school. He had promised a new, freer Iran and a break from the past on the world stage, but the speech was very much in the vague but condemnatory style of official Tehran pronouncements. Rouhani declared that "peace is within reach" but gave no hint as how to get there. And he opted not to have a crowd-pleasing meeting with Barack Obama. The charm offensive appeared to slow down if not come to a halt. Today, however, it was on again. The foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, an urbane and skilled diplomat, said he wanted "a jump-start to the negotiations ... with a view to reaching an agreement within the shortest span." The negotiations in question start on Thursday afternoon at the UN. They will be attended by Zarif and the foreign ministers of a six-nation negotiating group (known both as the E3+3 or the P5+1 for obscure reasons no one really cares about any longer), convened by the EU foreign policy chief, Cathy Ashton. Importantly, the meeting will bring together Zarif and John Kerry, in what will be the most substantial exchange between Iranian and US top officials since the Islamic revolution of 1979, particularly as the much anticipated Obama-Rouhani handshake failed to materialise. (Madeleine Albright and the then Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, attended the same meeting in 2000 but did not speak. Colin Powell shook hands with Kharrazi the next year but didn't get beyond small talk). So which version of the new Iran is real? The get-on-with-it pragmatist or the ponderously-cautious theologian? A British diplomat in New York argued it is wrong to see a contradiction. A lot of pundits and journalists have been getting over-excited over Rouhani. They expected some kind of 'Love Actually'* moment, a Hollywood ending, at the general assembly and instead we got rather an academic speech from someone who is an academic. We found it encouraging. Like all general assembly speeches it was substantially or wholly aimed at a domestic audience, but he moved as far as he could on the substantive issues. Although the Zarif-Kerry encounter at Ashton's meeting may be laden with symoblism, it may not be immediately clear if negotiations positions have shifted enough to break the stalemate of the past decade. Senior diplomats from the six nation negotiating group (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) will meet for an hour mid-afternoon to make sure their are all on the same page. Then the group's foreign ministers will come together for half an hour before Zarif joins them for a short session expected to last not much more than another half hour. The 'deliverable' at the end of the afternoon will be agreement on when to hold the next meeting, expected to a nuts-and-bolts session in Geneva in October, and what precise form it will take. Only in Switzerland is it likely to become evident whether Rouhani's election has brought the sides any closer together. This may be less like Hollywood and more like Iranian cinema, where the true meaning only emerges slowly and is subject to multiple interpretations. * <em>A Britishism referring to a 2003 comedy starring Hugh Grant as a prime minister who unexpectedly dispenses with diplomatic niceties and speaks his mind at the film's climax.</em> Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |