Mohsen Rezaei appointed as secretary of Iran's top security body

DUBAI: Iran has changed its secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, appointing former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei as second-in-command on the body that coordinates the country’s security and foreign policy.

Rezaei is more of an outspoken public figure than his predecessor, Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr.

The appointment was announced late on Sunday by President Masoud Pezeshkian’s deputy director of communications.

Zolqadr had only been appointed as SNSC secretary in late March, after his predecessor, Ali Larijani, was killed in an air strike during the war pitting Iran against the US and Israel.

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No reason was given for the change and it was not immediately clear if it would herald any change in policy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Saturday that Iran and Oman were “very close” to an agreement on a new shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz — which has been all but closed during five months of war — but reopening it would depend on other conditions, including US compensation to Iran.

Zolqadr meanwhile had listed other demands including ending US threats against Iran, stopping aggression against Iran and its Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni and Iraqi allies, lifting a blockade and sanctions on Iran and freeing Iranian assets.

The SNSC, formally chaired by the elected president, coordinates security and foreign policy, and includes top military, intelligence and government officials in addition to representatives of the supreme leader who has ultimate say over all matters of state.

Rezaei, 71, commanded Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from 1981 to 1997, including during much of the Iran-Iraq war.

He later served as secretary of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council for more than two decades and as vice president for economic affairs from 2021 to 2023 under hardline President Ebrahim Raisi.

He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Tehran but has spent much of his career in Iran’s security and political establishment.

A decree from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Sunday also appointed Rezaei as his representative on the SNSC, joining fellow hardliner Saeed Jalili, with the decree citing Rezaei’s “valuable experiences”, including his role during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

In the same decree, Khamenei appointed Zolqadr as his political adviser.