A day after Iran’s Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, spoke briefly with Condoleeza Rice at the Sharm al-Sheikh Conference in Egypt, and left the dinner ceremony abruptly in protest to the way a woman violinist performer was dressed, he told Time magazine that his talks with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice resembled a joke and were not important. He once against stressed that the red line in the talks was uranium enrichment, adding that if there was agreement on this issue, many of the issues between the two countries would get on the path of resolution. But who is Manouchehr Mottaki?

Mottaki was born in Bandar Gaz in the northern province of Golestan, in 1953. He received his BA from India’s University of Bangalore in 1976 in Sociology, but was unable to continue his education and returned to Iran. He worked for some time with the Islamic Student Associations in India, where his friends jokingly referred to him as “the Islamic Association’s kitchen.” He then returned to his hometown of Bandar Gaz and was elected to the first Majlis [Parliament] after the revolution as a representative of his town. Twenty years after receiving his BA, Mottaki completed his MA in international relations from Tehran University.

Diplomatic Background

Mottaki joined the Foreign Ministry at a time when members of the Islamic Students Association were rapidly replacing diplomats and even experts at the ministry. After completing his first assembly term, Mottaki joined the ministry and was appointed director of the ministry’s seventh bureau in 1984. A year later, in 1985, Mottaki was appointed as Iran’s ambassador to Turkey. At that time, Turkey was a desired destination for many Iranians who belonged to opposition groups and were fleeing either to Europe or Iraq through Turkey. During Mottaki’s tenure, many of the Islamic Republic’s dissidents were killed across Turkey, prompting Turkish officials to accuse Mottaki of instigating instability and issuing him a persona non grata status, which meant he had to leave the country within 24 hours. Mottaki returned to Iran and was promoted through the ranks quickly. He was appointed as the director general for West European affairs in 1989, and as deputy foreign minister for legal, consular and parliamentary affairs in 1992. In 1994, coinciding with the emigration of thousands of unemployed Iranians to Japan, Mottaki was appointed as Iran’s ambassador to Japan and, according to some, set up religious and martyrdom ceremonies there for the first time. In 1991, Mottaki became a top advisor to the foreign minister, and was later elected to the Seventh Majlis as a conservative deputy, where his colleagues picked him as the head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

Larijani, Mottaki and others

Mottaki is certainly not a man from Ahmadinejad’s team. In the 2005 presidential elections he served as Ali Larijani’s campaign manager and was regarded as Larijani’s top advisor. After Ahmadinejad’s election as president, Larijani was appointed as the head of Iran’s National Security Council to check the newly-empowered radicals. Under these conditions, Manouchehr Mottaki was put in charge of running the foreign ministry. However, he has been careful not to undermine Ahmadinejad’s official line of policies.

The Future

Many experts believe that, although Mottaki insists that Iran is ready to negotiate with the United States, and the United States also indicates that it is willing to solve its problems with the Islamic Republic, each party has set preconditions to talks that are unacceptable to the other party. Nevertheless, both parties are negotiating despite the fact that neither precondition has been met. The important point is that, in its diplomatic game, Iran is buying time, while the United States is trying to manage its existing crises so that it can confront Iran more effectively.