Dr. Mehdi Sanaei appointed as the Advisor to UT President on International Relations, Cooperation with Russian Federation and Eurasian Countries

Dr. Mehdi Sanaei, Associate Professor and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been appointed as the Advisor to the President of University of Tehran on International Affairs and  Scientific- Academic Cooperation with Russian Federation and Eurasian Countries.  Moreover , he has also been appointed as the Secretary to the Secretariat of Rectors’ Forum for Top Iranian and Russian Universities

Mehdi Sanaei is an Iranian academic, politician, and diplomat. He has been Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Russian Federation.

As a senior international relations scholar and well-known political author, he is the founder of Russian Studies Department in the Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, and has taught various courses on Eurasian affairs since 2005.

Previously he was a visiting lecturer in political science at Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) (1999 – 2003). He has been a member of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) since May 2014 and member of Kazakhstan Academy of Social Sciences since 1997.

Dr. Sanaei was lawmaker at Iran’s Islamic Parliament (Majlis) from 2008 to 2013. During his tenure in the Parliament, he was deputy to Foreign Policy Committee in the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission (NSFPC), the Parliament representative in Caspian Sea Affairs and chair of Iran’s Parliamentary Friendship Group (PFG) with Ukraine and Russia.

He is also the founder and CEO of the Institute for Iran-Eurasia Studies (a.k.a. IRAS) since 2004. IRAS is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental think tank and publisher based in Tehran whose mission is to analyze and promote the understanding of major issues and current affairs of Eurasia and South Caucasus.

Sanaei attended University of Tehran in Iran and graduated in political science in 1992. He then continued his higher education got his M.A. in international relations from University of Tehran in 1995. He finally obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in 2001. His Ph.D. thesis entitled “Iran-Central Asia Political and Social Relations” was prized in the Iran's Book of the Year Awards.