Mohammad Javad Zarif

Dschwad Mohammed Sharif, Mohammad- Javad Zarif also, (Persian محمدجواد ظریف, born January 8, 1960 in Tehran ) is an Iranian politician and foreign minister.

Sarif studied at Denver International Law and Political Science. At times, he was Professor of International Law in Tehran.

He was from 2002 to 2007 Ambassador to the UN (also in the Cabinet Ahmadinejad I), previously he was from 1992 to 2002 Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran ( under Alī -Akbar Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami ). On August 4, 2013, he was nominated by President Hassan Rohani for the office of Secretary of State, on August 15 he took office.

Sarif uses, as well Rohani, as one to spread the first and few representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as a regular communication tool, political messages and views. Such web services are locked inside Iran as part of the comprehensive Internet censorship. The announcement Rohanis in the fall of 2013, to reconsider this practice has not yet been implemented. In a joint press conference with Sarif the Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, the end of February 2014 criticized the existing censorship sharp and was concerned about the verzeichnenden to the office Rohanis increase in executions in Iran.

Positions

Sarif is often described as " moderate technocrat " as he entered and unofficial meetings with U.S. diplomats. He identified himself in many utterances explicitly with the goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran, even with the global demands of the "Islamic Revolution" of 1979, he writes in his early 2014 in Tehran published autobiography. :

"We have a fundamental problem with the West and especially America [ ... ] This is because we are claimants a mission that has a global dimension. It has nothing to do with the level of our power, and is based on our source of raison d'être. How is it that Malaysia [ a predominantly Muslim country ] does not have any similar problems? Because Malaysia does not try to change the international order. "

Sarif has distanced himself from the Holocaust denials of former President Ahmadinejad. He condemned the beginning of September 2013 explicitly the Holocaust. In the same breath he called " the oppression of the Palestinians by the Zionists ." On the sidelines of the 50th Munich Security Conference 2014, he described the Holocaust as a " terrible tragedy [ ... ] and that must never happen again ". However - as Sarif - " this must not be an excuse for the violation of the rights of the Palestinian people."

In January 2014 Sarif put on a visit to Lebanon a wreath at the grave of the former military commander of Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyah, in Beirut down.