Abbas Araghchi would look upon Canterbury Cathedral and ponder the nature of power after immersing himself in political philosophy books at the University of Kent.
The Iranian diplomat-scholar left revolutionary Tehran for the Kentish countryside in 1995 to deal with questions that at the time seemed purely theoretical.
The libraries and lecture halls in the Garden of England offered him temporary refuge from Iran’s factional rivalries.
Three decades later, those lessons in political philosophy have become all too real for Mr Araghchi as he desperately tries to assert his power against rival factions within the regime, bring peace to his country and stave off further financial crises.
As Iran’s foreign minister, he shuttles between Islamabad, Muscat and Saint Petersburg carrying messages from a new supreme leader who has not appeared on camera since assuming power.
Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the Crisis Group think tank, said: “Araghchi has long understood that Iranian diplomacy is never conducted in a vacuum – it must constantly answer to the pressures, suspicions, and red lines of politics at home.”
Mr Araghchi, 63, embodies Iran’s essential contradiction: he is the regime’s most experienced dealmaker trying to end a war, but his hands are tied by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals who have the final say over his negotiating mandate.
“I was trained as a diplomat not to interfere in domestic politics and to consider only national interests and the Islamic Republic’s welfare,” Mr Araghchi wrote in his memoir, recounting battles with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013. “But the president had a different view.”
That tension – between professional diplomacy and factional warfare – has defined Mr Araghchi’s nearly 40-year career and now threatens to doom his most consequential mission.
Mr Araghchi joined the IRGC in 1979 after graduating from high school, fought in the Iran-Iraq war, then moved into diplomacy. He still keeps his combat uniform.
“After 1989 when I entered the foreign ministry, I formally left the IRGC but not in my heart,” he told an Iranian magazine in 2015. “My heart is still there.”
That dual identity – revolutionary fighter turned Western-educated diplomat – mirrors Iran’s own paradox and may explain why he survived two purges that sidelined other pragmatists.
The first came under Mr Ahmadinejad.
When Ali Larijani resigned as nuclear negotiator in 2007 over clashes with the president, Mr Ahmadinejad demanded a complete team change.
“Mr Ahmadinejad explicitly told Mr Mottaki: Put Araghchi aside,” Mr Araghchi wrote, referring to Manouchehr Mottaki, the former foreign minister.
Exiled to the embassy in Tokyo, he felt “like a player the coach pulls from the field mid-game for no reason”.
The second purge followed Ebrahim Raisi’s 2021 election, when hardliners who denounced the 2015 nuclear deal took power.
Mr Araghchi was moved to the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations – technically a demotion, practically exile.
Yet both times, Iran eventually needed what Mr Ahmadinejad’s circle and Mr Raisi’s government lacked: institutional memory of high-stakes negotiations and personal relationships with Western counterparts that took years to build.
Abbas Araghchi has survived two hardliner purges that sidelined other pragmatists
Mr Araghchi’s finest professional hour came at the luxury Palais Coburg hotel in Vienna, not as lead negotiator but as the indispensable deputy to foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
While Mr Zarif provided strategic vision and political cover for the nuclear talks, Mr Araghchi handled technical details across marathon sessions.
Wendy Sherman, his US counterpart, later recounted how previous Iranian negotiating teams refused to speak English, forcing all communication through translators.
When Mr Araghchi’s team arrived under Hassan Rouhani – who succeeded Mr Ahmadinejad as president in 2013 – this all changed.
The two developed an unusual rapport. Both became grandparents during the negotiations and exchanged baby photos.
But Mr Araghchi’s assessment of the deal he helped craft revealed the painful compromises it required.
In a leaked 2015 briefing to state media managers, he called Iran’s nuclear programme an “economic loss” justified only by “dignity, independence and progress”.
Now Mr Araghchi faces negotiations under conditions that make the 2015 talks look simple.
Back then, the foreign ministry controlled the process and Mr Rouhani’s political coalition backed the effort.
Today, Tehran seems unable to agree on who talks, what’s on the table, or whether to talk at all.
Donald Trump extended the ceasefire last week after both delegations failed to show up in Islamabad, calling Iran “seriously fractured” and needing time to develop a “unified proposal”.
Hardliners insist nuclear issues should never have been discussed. Moderates want a deal to avoid the destruction of Iran. Legislators say they have been kept in the dark.
The political and diplomatic architects of the 2015 deal are now condemned as traitors by hardliners. Attendees at Quds Day rallies last month chanted “death to compromisers” while Mr Araghchi was giving an interview.
Mohammad Marandi, a negotiating team member, said Mr Araghchi “will have no negotiations with the Trump regime” the same day Mr Araghchi told reporters he had conveyed Iran’s positions to Pakistan.
Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of parliament on the negotiating team, said it was a “strategic error” to include the nuclear issue on the agenda, which would embolden US demands for uranium export or a 20-year enrichment suspension.
Yet Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Mashhad Friday prayer leader, insisted “no one talks about agreement with America”.
It explained Mr Araghchi’s Saint Petersburg mission on Tuesday.
Delivering Mojtaba Khamenei’s letter to Vladimir Putin served multiple purposes, including updating Russia on negotiating positions and exploiting Putin’s relationship with Mr Trump.
Abbas Araghchi shakes hands with Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on Monday – Dmitry Lovetsky/AFP
While he cannot make binding commitments because Tehran’s power centres will not agree on negotiating parameters, he can still make moves to strengthen his hand.
Mr Vaez said: “His strength has been navigating that narrow corridor with discipline and fluency.”
He added: “But he is not a gambler by temperament. He tends to execute the system’s decisions rather than redefine the boundaries of what the system is prepared to do.”
The IRGC showed their power by seizing commercial vessels after Mr Trump extended the ceasefire while maintaining the maritime blockade Iran considers an act of war.
Each faction in Tehran assumes the other is weaponising foreign policy for factional advantage rather than national interest.
Mr Araghchi cannot acknowledge potential concessions without hardliners denouncing them as capitulation, and he cannot make promises while the IRGC maintain a foreign policy veto.
The scholar must now try to bring about peace in a divided country, where power resides in military hands, scuppering his own authority.
And that is even before he has to deal with the unpredictable Mr Trump.
Mr Araghchi’s PhD thesis examined theories of political reconciliation. Crashing into the reality of war, they now face the toughest test of all.