DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president on Monday appointed a brand new official to take over the submit of secretary of the nation’s Supreme National Security Council, changing the longtime highly effective official Ali Shamkhani after turning into implicated in a latest spy scandal.
President Ebrahim Raisi issued a decree changing Shamkhani who has confronted persistent corruption allegations — which he denied — in addition to scrutiny due to shut ties with a British-Iranian man hanged on spying expenses earlier this 12 months in Iran.
Shamkhani was a key participant in negotiations with the West over Iran’s 2015 nuclear cope with world powers. He was additionally in workplace through the years of tensions that adopted then-President Donald Trump’s 2018 resolution to unilaterally withdraw America from the accord.
The decree, reported by the state-run IRNA information company, provided no rationalization for the change. In a message on Twitter on Sunday night time, as rumors about his place circulated, Shamkhani cryptically posted a verse by the 14th century Persian poet Mohtasham Kashani.
His substitute, a Revolutionary Guard determine, will take over as Iran faces continued financial strain from Western sanctions, challenges following monthslong protests over the loss of life of Mahsa Amini — who died whereas in custody of Iran’s morality police — and a latest de-escalation with Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia.
Shamkhani had served within the place for just below a decade. He wasn’t the longest-serving secretary of the council, which is the highest-level physique to cope with safety issues underneath Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Former President Hassan Rouhani served in the identical capability for 15 years earlier than taking workplace.
However, Shamkhani was believed to have the belief of politicians throughout Iran’s theocracy and Khamenei. Shamkhani had been key in negotiations with Gulf Arab states as they sought to de-escalate tensions with Tehran, together with being readily available for the introduced détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia reached in China.
But Shamkhani more and more confronted criticism from inside the theocracy. Purported minutes leaked earlier this 12 months of a gathering between Shamkhani and raking Revolutionary Guard officers rekindled corruption accusations towards him, together with over actual property and delivery offers tied to his household. Shamkhani publicly denied all allegations he confronted.
In January, Iran hanged British-Iranian Ali Reza Akbari, a detailed ally of prime safety official Shamkhani, on spying expenses. An audio message from Akbari aired by the BBC’s Persian service included him saying he was accused of acquiring top-secret info from Shamkhani “in trade for a bottle of fragrance and a shirt.”
Shamkhani was an city guerrilla through the 1979 Islamic Revolution and commanded a number of profitable navy operations throughout Iran’s eight-year warfare with Iraq within the Eighties as effectively.
Shamkhani’s substitute shall be Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the previous chief of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s strategic heart.
A biography of Ahmadian, 62, printed on Monday by the semiofficial Fars information company mentioned he served as commander of the Guard’s navy and the chief of the Guard’s joint employees. He can also be on the nation’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme chief, in addition to settles disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council which acts as Iran’s constitutional watchdog overseeing the nation’s elections.
___
Associated Press author Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.