Rowhani still undecided on his nuclear negotiator

DUBAI: President Hassan Rowhani is still deciding who will lead talks with world powers on Iran’s nuclear program, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, more than two months after the moderate cleric was elected.
Rowhani has signaled that Iran is willing to be more transparent over the program and take a less confrontational stance in negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, the so-called P5+1.
Although he has named his Cabinet, Rowhani has yet to announce who will be the new head of the Supreme National Security Council, a figure who has also been chief negotiator in 10 years of the on-off nuclear talks.
The delay has led to speculation in Iranian media that Rowhani wants to transfer that role to the Foreign Ministry, traditionally a less hard-line institution.
“In the past 10 years ... the negotiator has been the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. This may change, Mr. Rowhani may decide to appoint someone else, maybe the foreign minister or anyone else that he deems necessary,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi told a news conference.
“We are still waiting for our president to announce which institution is charged with pursuing the nuclear negotiations and afterward to identify the negotiator and the nuclear team,” Araqchi said. Given the importance of the post and the urgency with which Rowhani says he wants to restart talks, the time taken to decide who should conduct them suggested a vigorous debate behind the scenes of Iran’s complex and often opaque political system.
Rowhani has already appointed the pragmatic outgoing foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, to replace the hard-liner Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani as head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in what experts see as a signal of a more flexible approach.
Rowhani has stressed that, while there will be a change of style in Iran’s dealings with the world, Tehran will not give up what it says is its right to pursue nuclear technology to generate electricity and for medical research.
Western nations suspect Tehran is using its nuclear work as a screen for a secret weapons program.
The present head of the Supreme National Security Council is Saeed Jalili, an uncompromising hard-liner who was resoundingly beaten by Rowhani in the presidential election.
While the president can appoint a new head of the council, the fact that it comprises representatives of government, Parliament, judiciary, armed forces and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may make it hard to agree a negotiating line.