Abdollahian: A Diplomatic Journey Ending in Tragedy

Iranian media announced today, Monday, the death of the Iranian president and his foreign minister in a helicopter crash in the northeast of the country on Sunday evening.

Who is Abdollahian?

Hossein Amir Abdollahian is a conservative Iranian diplomat who was nominated by President Ebrahim Raisi after his victory in the 2021 presidential elections for the position of foreign minister, and he received the trust of the conservative parliament. He is known for his closeness to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and to resistance movements in West Asia, notably Hezbollah.

Abdollahian was born in 1964 in Damghan, Semnan Province (east of Iran's capital, Tehran). He grew up in a religious family, where his mother and older brother took care of the family following the death of his father when he was six years old. Abdollahian got married in 1994 and has a son and a daughter. He graduated from the Iranian Foreign Ministry's College of International Relations and was appointed to the diplomatic corps.

He began his career as deputy ambassador to Iraq from 1997 to 2001. After returning to Iran, he held the position of deputy in the first Gulf Affairs Department of the Foreign Ministry for three years. Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was appointed as the special assistant to the foreign minister on Iraqi affairs until 2006. During the last year of his mission, he was appointed a member of the political-security committee for nuclear negotiations with the European troika (Britain, Germany, and France).

In 2006, he served as assistant director general of Gulf and Middle East affairs, before becoming head of the special committee on Iraqi affairs until 2007. In 2007, he was appointed ambassador to Bahrain. He then re-took the position of deputy foreign minister for Gulf and Middle Eastern affairs in 2010, before being promoted the following year to deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, a position he held until 2016. After that, he served as a special assistant to the Iranian parliament speaker until 2021 when he was appointed foreign minister.

Abdollahian is known for his close relationships with the Revolutionary Guard and its leaders, notably Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. strike on his convoy near Baghdad International Airport in early 2020. Abdollahian also maintains strong ties with Islamic movements due to his diplomatic roles in Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, leading to close personal relationships with leaders of resistance movements against Israel, including Hezbollah.

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