The Iranian government on Monday appointed Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri as acting foreign minister. The appointment of Bagheri, who served as deputy foreign minister under Amir-Abdollahian, was announced by government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi on state television.
Bagheri is a career diplomat and is closely associated with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei’s daughter Hoda is married to Mesbah ol-Hoda, who happens to be Ali Bagheri Kani’s brother.
Bagheri was born in October 1967 in the northwestern Kan District of Tehran and holds a Ph.D in economics from the Imam Sadegh University.
The university has been run by the Bagheri Kani family, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is a democratic coalition of Iranian opposition organisations and personalities.
Their website says because of his brother’s marriage to the Supreme Leader Khamenei’s daughter, Ali Bagheri Kani is literally considered ‘within the family’.
The website in a post also said that Kani shares the same mistrust Khamenei has of the West, particularly the US.
Kani also believes that Iran’s influence in Syria, Yemen, the Palestinian armed resistance movements, Lebanon and Iraq are intrinsic to its national security.
“As the leader has said before, the movement in Syria is actually preserving the national security of our country. Hash al-Shaabi in Iraq, Jeysh al-Shaabi in Syria, Ansarullah in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. These are actually the rings of impacts of the Islamic Republic who have soared in these geographic units,” he said in 2020.
“Iran’s strategic stance on the Palestinian issue has consistently aligned with our national interests,” he said in an address to students shortly after the October 7 attacks.
The NCRI post also said that Ali Bagheri Kani’s alignment with Ali Khamenei’s ‘revolutionary view’ positions him well to play a significant role in negotiations with world powers over Iran’s nuclear program.
He has a deep understanding of the Iranian strategies with regard to its nuclear ambition because of his deep-seated involvement in Iran’s national security for several decades.
He also believes that Iran was able to ‘extort’ the West during the nuclear negotiations. In 2020 he said: “Some people didn’t believe that the nuclear program is a power component, arguing that we are not seeking nuclear weapons… But sensitive and complex technologies have dual purposes. Only governments invest in such technology because it has a military dimension… We wanted the centrifuges to keep spinning so that the wheels of our economies can spin as well”.
Bagheri Kani became the international deputy at the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council at the age of 22. He became the political deputy of “Khabar Radio” and worked for the main state broadcaster organisation in 1994.
He was appointed deputy foreign minister for political affairs in 2021.
In 2005, when Ali Bagheri Kani was 38 years old, he became the Director-General for Central and Northern Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two years later, in 2007, he was promoted to European Deputy of the ministry after Saeed Jalili became the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).
In 2008, as nuclear talks began, Bagheri Kani left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to join the Secretariat of the Supreme Security Council as a deputy under Saeed Jalili. During their time leading these talks, the Iranian regime faced the toughest sanctions and UN resolutions. Bagheri Kani and Jalili worked together at the SNSC until 2013.
In 2013, Ali Bagheri Kani became the campaign manager for Saeed Jalili’s presidential run.
Stay informed with the Iranian President News Latest Updates..
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
