Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad was barely known when he won last year’s presidential elections. Few in Iran had even taken his candidacy seriously. Yet five months after taking office, the austere 49-year-old has become a recognisable and highly controversial figure on the international stage.

Through defiant rhetoric and rebellious actions, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has alarmed Iran’s neighbours and compounded European and American anxiety over Tehran’s nuclear programme. His call for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and, later, that the Jewish state be moved to Europe came just as Iran’s two-year nuclear negotiations with the Europeans and the United Nations were headed for crisis.