- Ghalibaf emerges as a key figure in Iran’s foreign diplomacy.
- Iran’s President Pezeshkian proposes Ghalibaf’s new role.
- Ghalibaf to coordinate Iran-China relations across sectors.
TEHRAN: Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who recently emerged as chief negotiator in talks with the US, has been appointed to oversee relations with China, Iranian media reported on Sunday.
“Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has recently been appointed as a Special Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran for China Affairs,” Tasnim news agency reported, citing “informed sources”, with other media having similar reports.
Ghalibaf was appointed to the post at the suggestion of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and with the approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Tasnim.
He will “coordinate various sectors of Iran-China relations”, it added.
Father’s News Agency said the late security chief Ali Larijani, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes on March 17, held a similar position.
Larijani oversaw the progress of negotiations with China, which led to a 25-year cooperation agreement in 2021.
After the outbreak of war on February 28 with Israel and the United States, Ghalibaf has emerged as a central figure steering high-level diplomacy in the single round of talks with the United States in April.
A number of senior Iranian officials, including former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, were assassinated in the war, which spread across the Middle East before a fragile ceasefire took hold on April 8.
Iran has in recent days allowed a number of Chinese ships to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy pipeline it had blocked since the war broke out.
The Revolutionary Guard said the ships were transiting under “an agreement on Iran’s strait management protocols”.
