On Jan 31, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei awarded medals to sailors of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who had captured US sailors after they entered Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf, an incident that had the potential to become an international crisis. Just over a week later, at a Feb. 8 ceremony, President Hassan Rouhani awarded medals to members of his Cabinet and Iran’s negotiation team for the final nuclear deal, a process that ended an international crisis.

At the ceremony, Rouhani said that the nuclear negotiations, which took a special urgency once he took office in 2013 and appointed his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to head them, were as “difficult and fateful” as some of the largest battles during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Rouhani said that he and the negotiation team were in constant communication the day of the final talks in Geneva and until 5 a.m. the next morning.

On the makeup of the negotiating team, Rouhani said that after Zarif took over and the talks progressed, there was a need to assemble a new team. Therefore, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) joined because of his technical expertise. Later in the talks, Minister of Defense Hossein Dehghan was consulted to address “[Israeli] accusations” and the issue of possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. Rouhani also thanked his chief of staff, Mohammad Nahavandian, an economist, for helping on the sanctions-related issues of the nuclear deal.

Other negotiators to receive awards were Deputy Foreign Ministers Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Majid Takht-Ravanchi and Hamid Baeidinejad. A number of AEOI officials and officials responsible for the implementation of the nuclear deal were also given awards.