Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi was severely injured in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday. However, some unconfirmed reports suggest that he was killed, but there is no official confirmation regarding the same.
Iranian media outlet Nournews reported that his wife was killed in the attack.
Who was Kamal Kharazi?
Kamal Kharazi is currently the head of the Strategic Council of Foreign Relations. He served as foreign minister from 1997 to 2005 under then President Mohammad Khatami. He was among the top advisers to late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and is currently advising Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Kharazi had earlier triggered controversy for suggesting that Iran could seek a nuclear weapon. In 2022, he told Al Jazeera that Iran has the technical know-how to make a nuclear bomb but it has not decided to build one.
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Recently, after the Iran war broke out, Kharazi said there is no 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 negotiation, they struck us," he told CNN.
Kharazi, 81, was born in Tehran in 1944. He completed BA in Arabic Studies and MEd from the University of Tehran. He received a PhD in Industrial Psychology from the University of Houston after serving as a teaching fellow there from 1975 to 1976.
He was the president of the Islamic Republic News Agency from 1980 to 1989. During the Iran-Iraq War, he served as a member of the Supreme Defence Council of Iran and military spokesman.
After his stint as foreign minister, Ali Khamenei appointed Kharazi as chairman of the newly created Foreign Relations Steering Council in 2006.
