{"id":246693,"date":"2021-09-10T03:47:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T08:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=246693"},"modified":"2023-02-01T03:22:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T02:22:48","slug":"who-is-hossein-amir-abdollahian-a-diplomat-or-a-field-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/publications\/special-reports\/who-is-hossein-amir-abdollahian-a-diplomat-or-a-field-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Hossein Amir-Abdollahian: A Diplomat or a Field Agent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"amir-abdollahian-qassem-soleimani\"<\/p>\n

He has been given many labels: a career diplomat, an anti-Western liaison, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s go-to advisor on \u2018East-oriented policy\u2019. For many years, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has been an aide to the criminal commander of terrorist Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, and the representative of the Quds Force within the ministry of foreign affairs. He was deputy to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and helped offer a \u2018goodwill gesture\u2019 to the Obama Administration when Khamenei adopted the strategy of so-called \u201cHeroic Flexibility\u201d. But as the Iranian regime\u2019s media once said, Amir-Abdollahian\u2019s position tells more about the future than the past.<\/p>\n

In 2007, when Tehran-backed militias<\/a> were targeting coalition forces across Iraq, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was part of the Iranian regime\u2019s negotiating team at the Iran-Iraq-US trilateral meeting in Baghdad. The meeting was held at the request of the Americans with the intention of stabilizing a situation in Iraq that they described as dangerous. The talks ended after three sessions without result. One of the Iranian delegation\u2019s main demands was that the US military hand over the People\u2019s Mojahedin (PMOI\/MEK) members from Camp Ashraf. The American delegation refused.<\/p>\n

During Ahmadinejad\u2019s tenure, Amir-Abdollahian was the Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab Affairs and the Quds Force liaison with regional countries. He met regularly with Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and other regime operatives in the region.<\/p>\n

From 2011-2016, Amir-Abdollahian was Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs\u00a0under<\/a> Ali Akbar Salehi and was responsible for foreign ministry activities in the region, especially Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. He also took\u00a0part<\/a>\u00a0in negotiations with the P5+1 on the regime\u2019s advancing nuclear program and made sure the Quds Force was always kept in the loop.<\/p>\n

\"amir-abdollahian-john-kerry\"<\/p>\n

Dismissal<\/h3>\n

On June 12, 2016, Jawad Zarif traveled to Norway for two days, attending the Oslo Summit and meeting 70 minutes with Foreign Secretary John Kerry. Back from Norway, Zarif promoted Jaber Ansari, then-spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, into Amir-Abdollahian\u2019s position and selected Bahram Qasemi as the new spokesperson.<\/p>\n

On June 20, news broke that Bahrain had stripped a Shiite cleric named “Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Qassim” of his Bahraini citizenship. This stirred a wave of condemnations within the Iranian regime, and Qassem Soleimani, then-commander of the Revolutionary Guards\u2019 Quds Force, said Bahrain had crossed a red line that could lead to war and the overthrow of the Bahraini Al Khalifa.<\/p>\n

Around that time, media outlets and researchers concluded that a core topic of Zarif’s meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Oslo was the dismissal of Amir-Abdollahian as a goodwill gesture from the Iranian regime\u2019s foreign ministry. According to sources, the decision was approved by the Supreme Leader. Apparently, Soleimani\u2019s statement against Bahrain was supposed to convey a message of defiance against the decision and was also approved by the Supreme Leader to balance the Foreign Ministry\u2019s decision for the regime\u2019s loyalists and to reassure regional proxy groups that Tehran would still support them.<\/p>\n

In late March 2016, Hassan Rouhani wrote a confidential<\/a> letter to the Emir of Kuwait calling for talks to resolve disputes with Arab countries. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai wrote that Mohammad Khalid, Kuwait\u2019s Deputy Minister and Minister of Interior, delivered the letter to four Arab countries. According to Arab media on April 1, 2016, in response to Rouhani’s letter, the Arab countries had asked for a series of measures, including the replacement of Amir-Abdollahian, Zarif\u2019s deputy for Arab-African affairs.<\/p>\n

On June 19, 2016, Al-Monitor<\/a>, an outlet with questionable ties to Tehran, wrote about Amir-Abdollahian\u2019s dismissal and speculated how this move would lead to an extension of the Iran nuclear deal aimed at curbing the regime\u2019s regional ambitions.<\/p>\n

On June 19, 2016, Al Hayat wrote<\/a>: \u201cThe Iranian Foreign Ministry took action to oust Amir-Abdollahian after Zarif met with John Kerry in Oslo last week. Jaberi Ansari replacing Amir-Abdollahian is one of the results of that meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Mohammad Abdollahi, the editor-in-chief of Hamshahri<\/a>, the removal of Amir-Abdollahian confirmed the Rouhani government’s \u2018non-revolutionary positions\u2019 and set the stage for Western restrictions on Iran\u2019s regional activity.<\/p>\n

According to Hoshdar News on June 23, 2016, Mehdi Mohammadi (an expert close to Saeed Jalili) said: “The dismissal of Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is telling us more about the future rather than the past. It is clear that he played an intrusive role in a project that was considered an emergency by the administration. That project is related to five issues:<\/p>\n