Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who recently emerged as a chief negotiator in talks with the United States, 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 carrying similar reports.
– Ghalibaf was appointed to the position at the proposal of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and with the approval of supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Tasnim.
– He will “coordinate various sectors of relations between Iran and China,” it added.
– Fars news agency said late security chief Ali Larijani, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes on March 17, held a similar position.
– Larijani oversaw the advancing of negotiations with China which led to a 25-year cooperation agreement in 2021.
– Following the outbreak of the war on February 28 with Israel and the United States, Ghalibaf has emerged as a central figure steering high-stakes diplomacy in the single round of talks with the US in April.
– A number of senior Iranian officials, including former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, were killed 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 conduit which it had blocked since the war erupted.
– The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the ships transited after “an agreement on Iran’s strait management protocols.”