By Nadeen Ebrahim, Tim Lister, Leila Gharagozlou, NCS
(NCS) — When the Iranian delegation landed in Zurich, Switzerland at the weekend, chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was the first down the plane steps, adopted by the international minister and different dignitaries.
Shortly afterwards, Ghalibaf posted a photograph on X, exhibiting himself strolling the tarmac in entrance of the plane, its fuselage adorned with the Iranian flag and the hashtag “#Mindab168” – a reference to a US attack on an elementary school in southern Iran in March.
“I consider the innocent children of Mindab and all martyrs of dear Iran to be watching over my every action,” he wrote on X.
The highly effective speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ghalibaf is leading the nation in the delicate subsequent part of talks with the US after almost four months of war.
The 64-year-old emerged as certainly one of Iran’s most senior figures after a wave of US-Israeli assassinations of prime Iranian leaders. Former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani, a key architect of Iran’s navy and diplomatic technique, have been each killed by airstrikes.
“Ghalibaf has finally arrived at a position of immense influence by a process of elimination. He sought the presidency several times but was eclipsed by rivals whom the war has since swept from the stage,” mentioned Ali Vaez, Iran undertaking director at the International Crisis Group.
As Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) grew in power in the wake of the US-Israeli strikes, Ghalibaf, its former air drive commander and a conservative pragmatist, rose with it.
He now sits at the negotiating desk with American leaders who ordered the killing of a lot of his friends.
The unique choice to process Ghalibaf with the negotiations gave the impression to be resulting from the US’ want for somebody extra senior than the Iranian international minister to attend, in order that Washington might justify sending Vice President JD Vance, in accordance with Ali Ahmadi, a fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and Middle East Institute Switzerland. Speaking to NCS, he famous that Trump’s normal negotiating duo, particular envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, had “extremely limited” credibility with the Iranians.
The Trump administration additionally doubtless regards Ghalibaf as “one of the few Iranian officials who pairs real influence with a pragmatic disposition,” Vaez mentioned.
Ghalibaf met Vance in Islamabad in April – the highest-level face-to-face assembly between Iranian and American officers since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
“During that period, we held three rounds of trilateral negotiations conducted face-to-face in the presence of mediators,” Ghalibaf mentioned in an interview with Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, there was little or no belief.
“In Islamabad I told Mr. Vance directly: ‘We entered these negotiations with complete distrust of you,’” he mentioned.
Over the weekend, Ghalibaf confirmed that regardless of being a pragmatist, he gained’t ship a straightforward victory for the United States.
During a name with Fox News on Sunday, US President Donald Trump appeared to make threats in opposition to Iran – and even its negotiators assembly with Vance in Switzerland – if the Strait of Hormuz weren’t opened.
“You close it and you won’t have a country,” Trump mentioned he advised Iranian officers about the waterway. “You won’t even make it back to your f**king country.”
Ghalibaf hit again on X, saying: “Don’t they ever think to themselves that if their threats had actually worked, they wouldn’t have reached this level of desperation today?”
He later posted a photograph exhibiting Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand and different gamers persevering to maintain the ball off the objective line, with the caption: “This is how we protect our land.”
A man of many hats
Ghalibaf has a historical past of falling in and out of favor with each Iran’s management and its folks.
He as soon as boasted that he personally beat protesters as a younger police commander – by no means shy about his position in suppressing challenges to the Islamic Republic.
“I was among those carrying out beatings on the street level and I am proud of that,” Ghalibaf is heard saying in an audio recording from 2013 about protests years earlier.
For Ghalibaf, the safety of the Islamic Republic has at all times been the overriding precedence. His public remarks emphasize resistance, nationwide power, and the have to confront exterior strain quite than compromise.
Little shock then that he is now issuing declarations nearly each day through social media in defiance of the US and Israel.
In March, Trump mentioned the US was “dealing with the man who is most respected” in Iran, however declined to call him.
Some experiences mentioned he was referring to Ghalibaf, who inside hours denied there have been any negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Experts say he has connections throughout the regime’s facilities of affect that might afford him a vital position in any negotiated settlement.
“He is the guy running the show,” mentioned Hamidreza Azizi at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Ghalibaf is much less in ideology than energy and reveals a Machiavellian contact at instances, says Azizi. “For him, the ends justify the means,” he advised NCS, pointing to his shifting views through the years on financial and different points.
Across a lifetime of service to the Islamic Republic, Ghalibaf has turn out to be the consummate regime insider, unfailingly loyal to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and supportive of its regional ambitions.
As a young person, he joined the IRGC throughout the Iran-Iraq battle in the Nineteen Eighties.
That marked the begin of a lifelong affiliation with the elite group, which has advanced into a robust drive to suppress dissent at house and undertaking Iran’s affect overseas.
Ghalibaf later commanded the IRGC’s air drive and has boasted about his expertise as a pilot. A video from October 2024 reveals him at the controls of an plane approaching Beirut amid Israeli air strikes.
Security first
Azizi described Ghalibaf as a “security first” official.
He was concerned in crushing pro-reform scholar protests in 1999 and was amongst those that warned then-President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, that the unrest threatened nationwide safety. He oversaw the suppression of additional scholar demonstrations in 2003 as police chief and held a senior safety position throughout the widespread protests that adopted the disputed 2009 election.
Yet Ghalibaf additionally has a repute as an efficient supervisor, because of a 12-year stint as mayor of Tehran, throughout which he modernized the capital’s infrastructure and oversaw bold housing packages in addition to the creation of inexperienced areas.
Azizi, who lived in Tehran at the time, mentioned Ghalibaf projected a picture of managerial competence.
But his tenure as mayor was dogged by frequent allegations of corruption, which resurfaced 4 years in the past when his household got here below scrutiny over substantial belongings declared overseas.
Ghalibaf has lengthy harbored ambitions for greater workplace. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency a number of instances however ended up splitting the conservative vote. In final yr’s election, he completed a distant third, with round 14% of the vote.
His energy base has as an alternative turn out to be Iran’s parliament, the place he has served as speaker since 2020, thanks in half to the assist of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Throughout his profession, Ghalibaf has remained carefully aligned with the IRGC, and has at instances clashed with different conservative figures, together with former President Ibrahim Raisi. He was an early supporter of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, who has now succeeded his father, even when the youthful Khamenei was thought of an extended shot for the position.
Ghalibaf is additionally tied to the new supreme chief through household. He is a relative of Mojtaba’s mom, who died of accidents sustained in the Israeli strike that killed her husband on February 28.
As he negotiates on behalf of Iran, his document suggests he’ll pursue deterrence and power quite than compromise.
He now has to juggle a number of duties. He should promote an settlement with the US to hardline factions throughout Iran who proceed to treat Washington with suspicion, whereas additionally getting the backing of reformists corresponding to President Masoud Pezeshkian – and the hundreds of thousands of Iranian residents who voted for a reformist president in the hope of discovering peace with the West.
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