Iran has appointed its deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs and former envoy to Argentine, Mohsen Baharvand, as its new ambassador to the UK, according to Iranian media reports on Sunday.
Baharvand, aged 55, will begin his activity as Iran’s new ambassador in the UK on Tuesday after submitting a copy of his credentials to Queen Elizabeth II, state-run ISNA news agency cited Iran’s chargé d’affaires to the UK Mehdi Hosseini Matin as saying.
The newly appointed ambassador is one of the inner circle members of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who is expected to retire from diplomacy after stepping down from his post next August.
Their relationship dates back to the days Zarif was assigned to the Iranian mission at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where Baharvand joined as an intern.
Baharvand will replace Hamid Baeidinejad, a former member of Iran’s nuclear deal negotiations team.
The new Iranian ambassador will be assuming his position after relations between London and Tehran having gone through many stages, especially as Iran anticipates the future of the nuclear talks in Vienna.
The UK had supported the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after which London and Tehran resumed diplomatic relations.
The resumption of ties came four years after the British embassy in Tehran was stormed and looted by dozens of protesters.
The angry protesters broke into the British embassy after a decision by the Iranian parliament to cut diplomatic ties with London in response to the UK’s support for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on the Iranian nuclear program.
More so, Baharvand will be taking up his new post in London at a time when the UK is trying to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British dual national imprisoned in Iran.
