“CANNY OPERATOR”
“Larijani is a real insider, a canny operator, aware of how the system operates,” Ali Vaez, the Worldwide Disaster Group’s venture director for Iran, mentioned earlier than the Center East conflict started.
Born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1957 to a distinguished Shia cleric who was near the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Larijani’s household has been influential inside Iran’s political system for many years.
A few of his family members have been the targets of corruption allegations through the years, which they denied.
He earned a PhD in Western Philosophy from the College of Tehran.
A veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the course of the Iran-Iraq Conflict, Larijani later headed state broadcasting IRIB for a decade from 1994 earlier than serving as parliamentary speaker from 2008 to 2020.
In 1996, he was appointed as Khamenei’s consultant to the SNSC. He later turned secretary of the SNSC and chief nuclear negotiator, main talks with Britain, France, Germany and Russia between 2005 and 2007.
He ran within the 2005 presidential elections, shedding to populist candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with whom he later had disagreements over nuclear diplomacy.
Larijani was then disqualified from operating for president in each 2021 and 2024.
Observers considered his return as the pinnacle of the SNSC as signalling a flip reflecting his repute as a conservative able to combining ideological dedication with pragmatism.
Larijani supported the landmark 2015 nuclear cope with world powers which unravelled three years later after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the settlement.
In March 2025, Larijani warned that sustained exterior strain may alter Iran’s nuclear posture.
“We’re not shifting in direction of (nuclear) weapons, however in the event you do one thing flawed within the Iranian nuclear challenge, you’ll power Iran to maneuver in direction of that as a result of it has to defend itself,” he instructed state tv.
Larijani repeatedly insisted negotiations with Washington ought to stay confined to the nuclear file and defended uranium enrichment as Iran’s sovereign proper.
VIOLENT REPRESSION
Larijani was amongst officers sanctioned by the US in January over what Washington described as “violently repressing the Iranian individuals”, following nationwide protests which erupted weeks earlier because of the rising value of dwelling.
In keeping with rights teams, 1000’s of individuals had been killed within the authorities’s brutal crackdown on the protests.
Larijani acknowledged that financial pressures had “led to the protests”, however blamed the violence which ensued on international involvement by america and Israel.
