Iran’s foreign minister has been accused of appeasing “the Great Satan” after “accidentally” shaking hands with the US president, Barack Obama, in the corridors of the UN headquarters in New York.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the head of Iran’s diplomacy apparatus who played an instrumental role as the country’s chief nuclear negotiator in securing the landmark nuclear agreement this summer, shook hands with Obama on Monday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly.

It was the first time a high-ranking Iranian official had shaken hands with an American president in over three decades. Iran’s semi-official Isna news agency said the two men ran into each other after the address of Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, to the general assembly while Zarif was on his way out of the UN headquarters.



“It is the first time in the history of Iranian-American bilateral relations that an Islamic republic official has met with the president of the United States of American face to face and exchanged greetings,” Isna said.

But the handshake did not go down well with everyone. A group of hardline students in Iran issued a statement published on the Fars news agency that accused Zarif of appeasing Iran’s sworn enemy, “the Great Satan”. Zarif faced similar reactions when he first met the US secretary of state, John Kerry, at the UN two years ago.

“You are shaking hands with the Great Satan,” said the statement by students affiliated to the hardline voluntary basij miltia. “A Great Satan that takes pride in remaining as our enemy.” The statement said news of the handshake had taken students by surprise. “You have to give answers to why you chatted with Obama while the US’s dim view of our country has not changed,” it said. The students urged the Iranian parliament to summon Zarif for questioning.

The hardline Iranian MP Hamid Rasaei shared a picture on Instagram showing a handshake between a human being and the devil in condemnation of the Zarif-Obama gesture. “Did you sign the nuclear deal with the same hand?” the picture says.

There had been speculation that it would be President Rouhani who would shake hands with Obama, but Rouhani had to cut short his UN visit and return to Iran after it emerged that more Iranian citizens had died at the Mina stampede in Saudi Arabia than previously thought. It emerged on Monday that as many as 228 Iranians had been killed and 248 were still missing.



However, the US president’s reference to Iran’s perceived support for terrorist organisations would have made such a historic encounter tricky.



Rouhani held a phone conversation with Obama in 2013 in New York, which marked the first direct contact between an Iranian president and his American counterpart in over 30 years.



That conversation accelerated the nuclear talks which bore fruit in July when Tehran agreed to a comprehensive agreement with the world’s six major powers, including the US and Britain, which required it to roll back its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Zarif, a US-educated fluent English speaker, spent most of his life in the US before being appointed to head Tehran’s foreign ministry. He has become very popular inside Iran among ordinary people and reformists because of successfully steering the country’s nuclear dossier towards an agreement.



He is also trusted by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has given him space to maneuver. But it is not clear what the ayatollah will make of his handshake with Obama. Khamenei has insisted in recent months that the Vienna nuclear deal does not mean the hostility between Tehran and Washington is over.