Backlash Against Javad Zarif as He Is Awarded Prize by British Think-Tank Chatham
Whether it is the Oscars or the Nobel prize, international awards are hardly met with enthusiasm by Iranian Principlists, and rather viewed as purposeful choices to pressure the Islamic Republic. Thus, it was predictable that the 24th of October news that Chatham House, a reputed international affairs think-tank, has chosen Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif as co-winner of its 2016 prize would not bode well for him inside Iran. From a Principlist point of view, the prize met several prerequisites for slamming Zarif: it was offered by an influential think-tank in Britain, a country for long viewed with suspicion by Iranian politicians, even before the revolution; it had a notorious co-winner: the United States’ Secretary of State John Kerry, and, perhaps, more important than the other two, it was given to Zarif for his undeniable role in sealing a nuclear deal with the West, an agreement Principlists have constantly called a serious detriment to Iran’s national interests.
In his latest presser, Foreign Ministry Speaker Bahram Ghassemi tried to soothe criticisms by saying that Zarif would not attend the Chatham Institute award ceremony due to his tight schedule, and cited Zarif that “this award belongs to the Iranian nation for their steadfast resistance against pressures and sanctions in the recent years.” Nonetheless, as Fereydoun Majlesi, a diplomatic expert, wrote in the Reformist Arman daily satirically, Zarif “should be offered condolences”, since his domestic opponents would claim the 2016 prize of the institute was an acknowledgement of his efforts to follow a Britain-backed policy of détente and moderation on part of Iran.
And that happened.
Javan, daily affiliated with IRGC, claimed that as an influential think-tank, Chatham House was behind pressures on Iran in the early 2010s for the country's nuclear program. According to Javan, Chatham was also one of the first Western institutes that spoke of likely vote-rigging in Iran’s 2009 presidential elections. “Chatham House is a powerful, influential institute, with secret ties, that uses its influence to manipulate foreign policy trends of countries across the world in favor of Britain and United States’ policies” Javan said. The newspaper called Javad Zarif’s selection as this year’s co-winner of the award a purposeful decision, calling for the Foreign Minister to reject the award to prove he “has no connection to such colonial awards.”
Mahdi Mohammadi, member of the nuclear negotiating team under Saeed Jalili, also reacted to announcement of Zarif as co-winner of the 2016 award of Chatham House, “an institute affiliated with England’s Queen”, in his personal Telegram® channel . “I am not sure if Mr. Zarif will accept the award, but I know that for the foreign ministry of a country like Iran, sharing a prize with the most criminal of foreign ministers of today’s world [John Kerry] is a serious cause of embarrassment.” Mohammadi asked the motive behind awarding Zarif the prize, adding that the 'special bond' between Zarif and Kerry failed to ease sanctions for the Iranian nation.
In his interview with Basij News, Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani, Principlist member from Isfahan Province, also called the Chatham prize “a bitter prize”, not an honor for FM Javad Zarif. “Zarif was awarded the prize because the JCPOA [nuclear deal] served their [Western countries'] interests much more than Iran.” Deligani offered his own description of institutes like Chatham, calling them front organizations for Western intelligence services, used to spread hegemony and act against the Islamic Republic of Iran. “I would reject the award if I were in Zarif’s place” he said.
A former Principlist MP, the hardliner Hamid Rasaei, was more forthright in his criticism of Zarif. “Zarif deserves this prize” he said. “He has done no little service to the Americans and the English, and has inflicted dramatic loss on Iran.” Rasaei slammed Zarif for dedicating the prize to the Iranian nation, responding that the Iranian nation “would never be proud of being celebrated beside a savage, wild wolf named America and a murderer named John Kerry.”
IRD/66