Iranian Foreign Ministry set for sweeping change
Having spent most of his first term negotiating the nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister is now set to implement sweeping structural changes in the Foreign Ministry.
TEHRAN, Iran — Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is planning to implement some structural changes in the Iranian Foreign Ministry as he begins his second term in office — and it is not clear how successful these changes will be.
A great part of Zarif’s first four years as foreign minister was spent resolving Iran’s nuclear file, a task that also engaged two of his key deputies, namely Majid Takht-Ravanchi, the deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs, and Abbas Araghchi, the deputy for legal and international affairs.
After several rounds of negotiations, Iran and the group of six countries known as the P5+1 ultimately reached a comprehensive nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015. However, because the talks diverted a great portion of the ministry’s attention away from other issues, the negotiations were accompanied by some domestic criticism.
These days, Zarif is engaged in an additional major task, bringing about structural development in a ministry that is resistant to change. The scale of the task at hand means that there is no guarantee of its success.
