Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi was seriously wounded in a strike that also claimed the life of his wife. According to Iranian media reports, his home in Tehran was targeted on Wednesday in a US-Israeli strike.
“In today’s bombing of residential homes in Tehran by the American-Zionist enemy, Dr Kamal Kharazi was injured,” Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency reported. The 81-year-old is said to have been badly injured and hospitalised following the attack.
Who is Kamal Kharazi?
A highly influential figure in Tehran’s corridors of power, Kharazi was an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
An academic by qualification, Kharazi was awarded a PhD in industrial psychology by the University of Houston, where he was also a teaching fellow from 1975-76.
Kharazi was a founding member of the Islamic Research Institute in London and has held a number of governmental, diplomatic, and academic posts throughout his career.
He was the president of the Islamic Republic News Agency from 1980 to 1989, and during the Iran-Iraq War, he served as a member of the Supreme Defence Council of Iran and military spokesman.
As an adviser to Khamenei on foreign policy, Kharazi played a key role in Iran, especially during the recent nuclear talks with Washington.
Kamal Kharazi spoke to CNN last month
Kharazi, who served as foreign minister from 1997 to 2005 under reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami, is still an advisor to the Iranian government and had given an interview to CNN a few weeks ago.
In his interview on March 9, Kharazi, who ruled out diplomacy for now, told CNN that the war would only end through economic pain – signaling a hardening of the government’s stance on day 10 of the conflict.
“I don’t see any room for diplomacy anymore. Because Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations, that while we were engaged in negotiations, they struck us,” Kharazi told CNN.
Kamal Kharazi’s role in talks with US
According to reports, he was recently involved in the back-channel negotiations between the US and Iran to end the war. Kharazi has been overseeing talks with Pakistan to arrange a possible meeting between Iranian officials and US Vice President JD Vance.
Why was Kamal Kharazi targeted?
While neither the US nor Israel has claimed the attack that injured Kharazi, critics have accused the Benjamin Netanyahu government of being behind it, arguing that it was Jerusalem’s latest attempt to sabotage any US-Iran negotiations to end the ongoing war.
The US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28 and more than a month later, the war is continuing with no immediate end at sight.
- The ongoing conflict between the US and Iran is intensifying, with diplomatic negotiations at risk.
- Kamal Kharazi’s role in Iranian politics underscores the complexities of international relations in the region.
- The assassination of influential figures like Kharazi may further complicate peace efforts.
