Rouhani charm offensive at UN fails to impress Iran’s hardliners

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s charm offensive at the UN this week has raised the hopes of pro-reform politicians and businessmen back home that his high-level meetings may help the country reach a breakthrough with the major powers in nuclear negotiations.

By contrast, his hardline opponents – who fear that success at the UN or in nuclear negotiations could change the balance of power in Mr Rouhani’s favour – are doing their best to ignore the flurry of news from New York.

Unlike their reformist counterparts, hardline media outlets have not published the pictures of a smiling Mr Rouhani shaking the hands of world leaders, including UK prime minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande – even though the encounter with Mr Cameron on Wednesday was the first between leaders of the two countries since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

“The fact that Rouhani decided to go to New York means he felt his visit could have an impact on the nuclear talks,” said one former senior Iranian diplomat who is working as an adviser to the regime on foreign diplomacy.

Many in Tehran agree. “Rouhani’s visits show the chance of reaching a nuclear deal is now higher than, let’s say, some weeks ago,” said one businessman. “Something has happened in New York during the talks.”

In his speech to the UN on Thursday, Mr Rouhani avoided the kind of strident rhetoric used by his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad that caused so much rancour in the past.

However, he did deliver strong criticism of western involvement in the Middle East and the behaviour of Iran’s Arab neighbours, which he said had contributed to the rise of violent extremism.

“Certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hands of madmen, who now spare no one,” he told the UN General Assembly. “Those who had a role in the creation of terrorist groups should confess and apologise for their mistakes.”

Mr Rouhani said he hoped a nuclear agreement could be reached before the November deadline, but said the talks would not progress if Iran faced “excessive demands”.

The president has in the past used the UN forum to help ease the international pressure over its nuclear programme and smooth the path of nuclear talks with six major powers – the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany.

The UN visit comes as Iran’s hardliners are struggling to prevent or undermine any major achievement by Mr Rouhani’s government, as they prepare for parliamentary election in early 2016.

The hardline judiciary’s arrest of Jason Rezaian, Tehran correspondent of the Washington Post and an Iranian-American national, and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, is seen as part of the power struggle, although Mr Rouhani denied this in an interview with the newspaper.

“The arrest is about how Jason had easy access to information and contacts at the president’s office, in particular his nephew, to take out information,” said one reform-minded analyst. “Hardliners may use this case for years to come even after Jason is freed.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.