Abbas Araghchi, whose official title is deputy minister for legal and international affairs at Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is more signficiantly one of Iran's senior nuclear negotiators. While Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif played the lead role in the nuclear talks and received the majority of media coverage, Araghchi and his American and European counterparts played important roles in bringing about the landmark nuclear deal.
The English-speaking diplomat, who holds a doctorate from the University of Kent in Britain, has a well-known record as a diplomat in Iran's Foreign Ministry dating back 20 years. However, in a recent interview with an Iranian magazine, a former commander from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has introduced a controversial — and unverified — new aspect to Araghchi's background.