The appointment of Gholamali Khoshroo as Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations on Jan. 31 was an important development. Washington’s refusal to issue a visa for the previous appointee, Hamid Aboutalebi, for alleged involvement in the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis, had left the position vacant for more than a year.

Tehran has an interests section in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, but it is staffed by Iranian permanent residents of the United States, not diplomats. Thus, the Iranian UN Mission in New York functions as the Islamic Republic’s most important diplomatic outpost in North America. The influence of some Iranian diplomats who have served in New York or who have spent time in the United States is such that conservative foes have labeled them “NewYorki-haa” (the “New Yorkers”). What marks these individuals is their shared quest for a more constructive Iranian relationship with the West.

Some of these figures include Mohammad Javad Zarif (minister of foreign affairs), Sadegh Kharazi (head of the Reformist Voice of Iranians Party), Majid Takht-Ravanchi (deputy minister of foreign affairs and nuclear negotiator), Hossein Fereydoun (brother of President Hassan Rouhani and special adviser on executive affairs), Amir-Hossein Zamaninia (deputy minister of oil and nuclear negotiator) and Kazem Sajjadpour (head of policy planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Khoshroo is also considered a New Yorker, having previously served at the UN Mission.

During President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second term, the aforementioned New Yorkers were dispersed among two main institutions: Zarif, Fereydoun, Zamaninia and Sajjadpour were at the Center for Strategic Research, a think tank headed by Rouhani. The others, including Takht-Ravanchi and Khoshroo, were based at Iranian Diplomacy, a think tank led by Kharazi. Aboutalebi had been based at the Center for Strategic Research, but is not considered a New Yorker, nor is Rouhani.