Background of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator – Ali Larijani PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 14 July 2006
Iran Terror Database

  Ai Larijani

In his own words:
“Making any concessions on nuclear technology is tantamount to the biggest treason."
(Fars News Agency, March 9, 2005)
London, 14 July 2006 (Iran Terror) - Ali Ardeshir Larijani is currently the Secretary General of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and heads the country’s nuclear negotiations team.

Larijani was the head of the Iranian State television and radio (IRIB) from 1994 to 2004. Prior to that, Larijani had a brief stint as the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, taking up the post from his predecessor Mohammad Khatami who later became president from 1997 to 2005.
At the end Larijani’s 10-year term as head of the state broadcasting corporation in May 2004, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed him as his personal representative in the SNSC for a three-year term.

Despite his many years in ministerial offices, Ali Larijani has never been a bureaucrat. Prior to becoming Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Larijani was one of the top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and a top aide to Khamenei.

His brother, Sadegh Larijani, is a cleric who is a member of the 12-man Guardian Council. Another brother, Mohammad-Javad, was Deputy Foreign Minister under Rafsanjani and is regarded as a top ideologue of the Khamenei faction. Larijani is also the son-in-law of Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari.

Larijani’s family ties landed him a senior position in the first months after the 1979 revolution, when he became director of state television at the age of 22. He later moved to the newly-established Ministry of Revolutionary Guards, where he held the position of deputy minister.

Upon returning to the top slot in IRIB in 1994, Larijani introduced “Islamicised” television programs, where foreign broadcasts were heavily edited and in some case removed altogether from long-time scheduling. He also censored much of the news, in particular about anti-government demonstrations. Defending the Islamic focus of his programs, Larijani maintained that they comply with "the policies and directions of the Supreme Leader".

During the Rafsanjani administration in the 1990s, Larijani became a key member of a secret three-man team created by Ayatollah Khamenei to “thwart the cultural onslaught on the Islamic Republic”. The other members of the trio were then-Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) Saeed Emami and then-Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Baqer Zolqadr.

The committee planned and carried out the infamous “chain murders” of dissidents in Iran and several assassinations abroad. It also ordered the production of several television programs that were jointly produced by IRIB and MOIS to discredit the opponents of the clerical regime. When the murders and other activities of the trio became a liability for the clerical rulers, Saeed Emami was turned into a scapegoat and was arrested as a “renegade” official. State media reported later that he had committed suicide in prison by drinking a “hair removal” substance.

In 2003, Larijani set up two Arabic-language television stations, al-Alam and Sahar, and a 24-hour external radio network, as part of a program to introduce Islamic values to Middle Eastern audiences. The stations have been blamed by Iraqi authorities for instigating violence. France has since banned Sahar because of its “fundamentalist ideology” and anti-Semitic propaganda.

Currently serving as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Larijani has been instrumental in pursuing the Supreme Leader’s confrontational strategy with the West over Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. On March 9, 2005, the government-run news agency Fars quoted Larijani as saying, “Making any concessions on nuclear technology is tantamount to the biggest treason”. He has often repeated this stance in interviews on Iran’s state media.