Ali Akbar Velayati

Who is Ali Akbar Velayati?

Ali Akbar Velayati is an Iranian politician, academic and diplomat. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for more than sixteen years from 1981 to 1997 under Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Presidents Ali Khamenei and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He is the first and only person that have held this position for more than ten years. He is currently head of Center for Strategic Research. He was a candidate in 2013 presidential election and lost, coming fifth out of the six candidates garnering 2,268,753 votes, which was 6.18% of the vote.