Mohammad Javad Zarif Khansari (; ; born 8 January 1960) is an Iranian career diplomat and academic. He was the foreign minister of Iran from 2013 until 2021 in the government of Hassan Rouhani. During his tenure as foreign minister, he led the Iranian negotiation with P5+1 countries which produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on 14 July 2015, lifting the economic sanctions against Iran on 16 January 2016. On 25 February 2019, Zarif resigned from his post as foreign minister. His resignation was rejected by Ali Khamenei and he continued as foreign minister. Before assuming his current position, he held various significant diplomatic and cabinet posts. He is a visiting professor at the School of International Relations and University of Tehran, teaching diplomacy and international organizations. He was the Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007. He served as an advisor and senior advisor to the Foreign Minister, Deputy Foreign Minister in Legal and International affairs, member of the UN Eminent Persons Group on Dialogue Among Civilizations, Head of the UN Disarmament Commission in New York, and Vice President for International Affairs of the Islamic Azad University. Early life and education Zarif was born in Tehran around 1960, although other sources have given the year of birth as 1959 and 1961. According to The New Republic, Zarif was born to an "affluent, religiously devout and politically conservative merchant family in Tehran". His father was one of the most well-known businessmen of Isfahan, and his mother Efat Kashani (d. 2013) was the daughter of one of the most famous businessmen of Tehran. He was educated at the Alavi School, a private religious institution. Zarif was shielded from TV, radio, and newspapers by his parents as a youth. There was only an alarm clock that played the Athan during prayers. Instead, he became exposed to revolutionary ideas by reading the books of Ali Shariati and Samad Behrangi. At age 17, he left Iran for the United States. Zarif attended Drew College Preparatory School, a private college-preparatory high school located in San Francisco, California. He went on to study at San Francisco State University, from which he gained a B.A. in 1981 and M.A. in 1982, both in international relations. Following this, Zarif continued his studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, from which he obtained a second M.A. in international