When the Iranian delegation landed in Zurich, Switzerland at the weekend, chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was the first down the aircraft steps, followed by the foreign minister and other dignitaries.
Shortly afterwards, Ghalibaf posted a photo on X, showing himself walking the tarmac in front of the aircraft, 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 powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ghalibaf is leading the country in the delicate next phase of talks with the US after almost four months of war .
The 64-year-old emerged as one of Iran’s most senior figures after a wave of US-Israeli assassinations of top Iranian leaders. Former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani , a key architect of Iran’s military and diplomatic strategy, were both killed by airstrikes.
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“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,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project 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 force commander and a conservative pragmatist, rose with it.
He now sits at the negotiating table with American leaders who ordered the killing of many of his peers.
The original decision to task Ghalibaf with the negotiations appeared to be due to the US’ need for someone more senior than the Iranian foreign minister to attend, so that Washington could justify sending Vice President JD Vance, according to Ali Ahmadi, a fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and Middle East Institute Switzerland. Speaking to CNN, he noted that Trump’s usual negotiating duo, special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, had “extremely limited” credibility with the Iranians.
The Trump administration also likely regards Ghalibaf as “one of the few Iranian officials who pairs real influence with a pragmatic disposition,” Vaez said.
Ghalibaf met Vance in Islamabad in April – the highest-level face-to-face meeting between Iranian and American officials 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 said in an interview with Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, there was very little trust.
“In Islamabad I told Mr. Vance directly: ‘We entered these negotiations with complete distrust of you,’” he said.
Over the weekend, Ghalibaf showed that despite being a pragmatist, he won’t deliver an easy victory for the United States.
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During a call with Fox News on Sunday, US President Donald Trump appeared to make threats against Iran – and even its negotiators meeting with Vance in Switzerland – if the Strait of Hormuz were not opened.
“You close it and you won’t have a country,” Trump said he told Iranian officials about the waterway. “You won’t even make it back to your f**king country.”
Ghalibaf hit back 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 photo showing Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand and other players persevering to keep the ball off the goal line, with the caption: “This is how we protect our land.”
Ghalibaf has a history of falling in and out of favor with both Iran’s leadership and its people.
He once boasted that he personally beat protesters as a young police commander – never shy about his role 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 security of the Islamic Republic has always been the overriding priority. His public remarks emphasize resistance, national strength, and the need to confront external pressure rather than compromise.
Little surprise then that he is now issuing declarations almost daily through social media in defiance of the US and Israel.
In March, Trump said the US was “dealing with the man who is most respected” in Iran, but declined to name him.
Some reports said he was referring to Ghalibaf, who within hours denied there were any negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Experts say he has connections across the regime’s centers of influence that would afford him a critical role in any negotiated settlement.
“He is the guy running the show,” said Hamidreza Azizi at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Ghalibaf is less interested in ideology than power and shows a Machiavellian touch at times, says Azizi. “For him, the ends justify the means,” he told CNN, pointing to his shifting perspectives through the years on economic and other issues.
Across a lifetime of service to the Islamic Republic, Ghalibaf has become the consummate regime insider, unfailingly loyal to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and supportive of its regional ambitions.
As a teenager, he joined the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
That marked the start of a lifelong association with the elite group, which has evolved into a powerful force to suppress dissent at home and project Iran’s influence abroad.
Ghalibaf later commanded the IRGC’s air force and has boasted about his skills as a pilot. A video from October 2024 shows him at the controls of an aircraft approaching Beirut amid Israeli air strikes.
Azizi described Ghalibaf as a “security first” official.
He was involved in crushing pro-reform student protests in 1999 and was among those who warned then-President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, that the unrest threatened national security. He oversaw the suppression of further student demonstrations in 2003 as police chief and held a senior security role during the widespread protests that followed the disputed 2009 election.
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Yet Ghalibaf also has a reputation as an effective manager, thanks to a 12-year stint as mayor of Tehran, during which he modernized the capital’s infrastructure and oversaw ambitious housing programs as well as the creation of green spaces.
Azizi, who lived in Tehran at the time, said Ghalibaf projected an image of managerial competence.
But his tenure as mayor was dogged by frequent allegations of corruption, which resurfaced four years ago when his family came under scrutiny over substantial assets declared abroad.
Ghalibaf has long harbored ambitions for higher office. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency several times but ended up splitting the conservative vote. In last year’s election, he finished a distant third, with around 14% of the vote.
His power base has instead become Iran’s parliament, where he has served as speaker since 2020, thanks in part to the support of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Throughout his career, Ghalibaf has remained closely aligned with the IRGC, and has at times clashed with other conservative figures, including former President Ibrahim Raisi. He was an early supporter of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, who has now succeeded his father, even when the younger Khamenei was considered a long shot for the role.
Ghalibaf is also tied to the new supreme leader through family. He is a relative of Mojtaba’s mother, who died of injuries sustained in the Israeli strike that killed her husband on February 28.
As he negotiates on behalf of Iran, his record suggests he will pursue deterrence and strength rather than compromise.
He now has to juggle several tasks. He must sell an agreement with the US to hardline factions across Iran who continue to regard Washington with suspicion, while also getting the backing of reformists such as President Masoud Pezeshkian – and the millions of Iranian citizens who voted for a reformist president in the hope of finding peace with the West.
