Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hard-line diplomat, dies in helicopter crash
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hard-liner close to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who confronted the West while also overseeing indirect talks with the U.S. over the country’s nuclear program, has died
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hard-liner close to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who confronted the West while also overseeing indirect talks with the U.S. over the country's nuclear program, died in the helicopter crash that also killed the country's president, state media reported Monday. He was 60.
Amirabdollahian represented the hard-line shift in Iran after the collapse of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers after then-U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord. He served under President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and followed their policies.
However, Amirabdollahian also was involved in efforts to reach a détente with regional rival Saudi Arabia in 2023, a move eclipsed months later by tensions that arose over the Israel-Hamas war. But he remained close to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, once praising the late Gen. Qassem Soleimani, slain in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
“You should thank the Islamic Republic and Qassem Soleimani because Soleimani has contributed to world peace and security,” Amirabdollahian once said. "If there was no Islamic Republic, your metro stations and gathering centers in Brussels, London and Paris would not be safe.”
