Info:
Mohsen Qomi, a Deputy Advisor for International Affairs in the Supreme Leader’s Office and an advisor to the Supreme Leader on International Communications, has represented the Supreme Leader on official international visits;
Mohsen Qomi, is a Khamenei confidant and his aide for international relations. Qomi is well-known in Iran for his nearly 20-year tenure at the Assembly of Experts – the body that chooses the supreme leader – and his long-term leadership of the supreme leader’s representative office for universities;
Qomi has spent most of his life as Khamenei’s appointee, including as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic Propaganda Office of the Qom Seminary. Following the recommendation of Ahmad Jannati – chair of both the Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council – Khamenei appointed Qomi in 1999 as president of the supreme leader’s representative office for universities, a position he held until 2005;
During that time, universities in Iran were crucial battlegrounds between the regime and the pro-democracy student movement. The OSL played a lead government role in that conflict, alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its Basij paramilitary, the police, and Ministry of Intelligence. It was during those years that Qomi gained first-hand experience in quelling dissent;
Like Khamenei, Qomi is deeply interested in the cultural war that he believes pits Iran against the West. From 1996 to 1998, he was director of the “Encyclopedia of Islamic Rational Science,” published by the Educational Institute of Imam Khomeini – headed by Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, one of the most radical clerics in Qom;
Qomi has the mild manner of a diplomat and has a good relationship with President Hassan Rouhani, who considered him to head the Ministries of Intelligence and of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Both positions require a green light from Khamenei, who preferred to keep Qomi in his own office, describing his role as “very important.”
Since 1998, Qomi has been a member of the Assembly of Experts, whose members he has said “are not accountable in their decisions to anyone except God.” In the Assembly, Qomi is a member of Commission 111, which – at least theoretically – monitors the supreme leader to ensure he rules according to the principles of the Islamic revolution. In this commission, he works with radical clerics such as Jannati, Ibrahim Raisi, and Ahmad Khatami. Like the Assembly itself, most commission members are Khamenei appointees who rarely criticize the supreme leader;
Qomi is a “hardliner’s hardliner.” He has called Israel “a cancerous tumor” that “should be eliminated,” and has defended Iran’s intervention in Syria. His position as foreign-affairs aide means he travels as Khamenei’s representative to such key countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Russia;
Title:
Deputy Advisor for International Affairs in the Supreme Leader’s Office
Advisor to the Supreme Leader on International Communications
Also Known As:
Mohsen Qomi
Born:
1960
Country:
Iran
Nationality:
Iranian
Website:
www.drmghomi.ir
Political party:
Islamic Coalition Party
Combatant Clergy Association