Saeed Jalili was born in September 1965 in the holy of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.
He holds a PhD in political science from Imam Sadeq University.
Jalili has been with the Iranian Foreign Ministry for 18 years.
His PhD thesis was titled Å“The Foreign Policy of the Prophet Muhammad”. He currently teaches “the Prophet’s Diplomacy” at Imam Sadeq University.
During the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war, Jalili fought as a Basiji volunteer force and lost a leg due to severe injuries.
Jalili was named director of Iranian Foreign Ministry Inspection Office at the age of 30. He remained in the post up to 1996. When Mohammad Khatami was elected president, Jalili was appointed as deputy foreign minister for Americas’ affairs.
He went on to become a senior director in the office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, Jalili returned to Foreign Ministry to serve as deputy minister for Europe and Americas. He was accompanying then chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in the talks with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
When Ali Larijani resigned from his post as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Jalili was appointed to the post.
Jalili is also member of the Islamic Engineers Society.
This article originally appeared on : Press TV