Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian died at the age of 60 in a helicopter crash alongside President Ebrahim Raisi.
The crash occurred on Sunday, but it took search teams several hours to find the site of the wreckage in Iran's mountainous East Azerbaijan province and confirm that all occupants of the plane had died.
Amirabdollahian had attended the inauguration of two dams near the border with Azerbaijan, where Raisi met with its president, Ilham Aliyev.
The top diplomat had been appointed to his position by Raisi after the latter won the 2021 presidential election. The appointment was representative of a broader shift in Iran's policy as the focus shifted from negotiations with the West to a renewed attention to regional relations. Amirabdollahian had previously focused on relations with the Arab world and Africa.
Like many within Raisi's cabinet, Amirabdollahian took office after the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), between Iran and world powers. As a result, increased Western sanctions more deeply affected the country's economy.
More recently, Amirabdollahian had risen to international prominence during an intense diplomatic and military standoff with Israel following the latter's April attack on Tehran's consular building in Damascus and Iran's response: a well-telegraphed but direct attack on Israel.
Rise in the diplomatic arena
Amirabdollahian, a career diplomat, was born in Damghan, east of Tehran, in 1964.
He lost his father at a young age and was raised by his mother and older brother.
From an early age he set his sights on a career in the diplomatic corps and earned his bachelor's degree in diplomatic relations in 1991 at the School of International Relations, run by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She then attended the University of Tehran, where she graduated with a master's degree in international relations in 1996 and completed her doctorate in the same subject in 2010.
Amirabdollahian's rise to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was swift.
In the late 1990s, he was posted to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad before being selected in 2007 as part of a three-man delegation to attend talks with the United States held in Iraq before being named ambassador to Bahrain that same year, position he held. until 2010.
Amirabdollahian assumed various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2011, he was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs during the government of Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was instrumental in negotiating the JCPOA.
But Amirabdollahian was removed from office in 2016 and became special assistant to Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, but He maintained contact with his former diplomatic colleagues.
Amirabdollahian was an enthusiastic supporter of the “resistance axis,” the network of states and groups opposed to Israel, and was proud of the friendship he formed with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an airstrike. American drones in Baghdad. in 2020.
In June of the same year, Amirabdollahian praised Soleimani's “strategic genius” for preventing the “disintegration” of Syria and Iraq.
Amirabdollahian also spoke warmly of his relationships with other Axis members, maintaining a long working relationship with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.
“It's interesting that even when you talk to him at three in the morning,” he later commented, “he's as refreshed as if it were six in the morning. He has done his morning prayers, he has had breakfast and he has the right amount of energy to talk.”
Time as Foreign Minister
Amirabdollahian was a close ally of Raisi and supported him as mass protests swept the country following the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. The young woman had been detained by Iran's moral police after being accused of not following the female dress code.
Known for his distrust of the West as well as his fundamental opposition to Israel, Amirabdollahian was nevertheless instrumental in reaching out to regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia, with whom he helped end the breakdown of seven years of diplomatic relations after each had supported the opposition. parties in various regional conflicts.
Amirabdollahian was also responsible for overseeing indirect talks with the United States aimed at offsetting crippling sanctions imposed on the country.
However, any action toward that end was quickly eclipsed in October last year, when Israel began its war in Gaza following attacks on southern Israel by Iran-backed Hamas.
While Iran said it had no prior knowledge of the Hamas attacks, Amirabdollahian met with Hamas leaders in Iran, Qatar and Lebanon.
Amirabdollahian then took a tough stance after an Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
He helped organize Iran's response, a direct missile and drone attack on Israel that was slow in coming and warned about in advance. The attack was a message in which Amirabdollahian told the American network CNN that if Israel embarked on more “adventurism”, Iran's “next response” [would be] immediately and at the highest level.”
Amirabdollahian is survived by his wife and two children.
