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Ali Shamkhani (born 29 September 1955) is an Iranian naval officer and politician who served as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran from 2013 to 2023. He formerly served as commander of both the IRGC Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy. He is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran and political advisor of the Supreme Leader of Iran since 2023. He is also one of the political appointees overseeing the United States–Iran negotiations aimed at reaching a nuclear peace agreement.
In June 2025, Iranian official Ali Shamkhani was severely injured in an Israeli airstrike during the Iran–Israel war. Initial reports mistakenly claimed he had been killed, but he later reappeared in public.
He held the post of the Minister of defence and Armed Forces Logistics from August 1997 until August 2005 in the government of Mohammad Khatami. Shamkani was replaced by Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar in the post. Shamkhani also ran for office in the 2001 Iranian presidential elections, coming in third.
He was the director of the Iranian think tank Center for Strategic Studies from 2005 to 2013. He was also military advisor to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On 10 September 2013, Shamkhani was appointed to secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) of Iran by president Hassan Rouhani.
After the US airstrike on 3 January 2020 killed the head of IRGC's Quds force Qasem Soleimani as he travelled in Baghdad, Iraq, Shamkhani said on 6 January that Iran’s response would be a "historic nightmare" for the US: "Even if the weakest of these scenarios gains a consensus, the implementation of it can be a historic nightmare for the Americans... The entirety of the resistance forces will retaliate," he said to the Fars News Agency. The SNSC was assessing 13 revenge scenarios.
At a Baghdad news conference after meeting with Iraqi politicians on 7 March 2020, Shamkhani said "Zionists are against regional security."
Shamkhani resigned as the country's top security official in May 2023. The New York Times disclosed that the Iranian government removed Shamkhani from his position as a national security official following scrutiny over his close ties with a senior British spy. Speculation about his departure arose in January after his former ally, Iranian-British politician and military officer Alireza Akbari, was executed for espionage on behalf of the UK. Iran International claimed that Shamkhani was forced to resign after his involvement as a key member of the government circle linked to Naji Sharifi-Zindashti, who allegedly headed a cartel engaged in kidnapping and drug trafficking in collaboration with the IRGC, was made public.
In 2025, Shamkhani is overseeing the United States–Iran negotiations aimed at reaching a nuclear peace agreement.
He has also been quoted as promoting Iranian development of nuclear weapons, as in an October 2025 interview he stated "If I returned to the defence portfolio, I would move toward building an atomic bomb", and declared that if he could return to the 1990s, "we would definitely build the atomic bomb".
On 20 February 2020, the US Treasury Department extended its sanctions again under Executive Order 13876 to Shamkhani amongst other individuals, following "the disqualification of several thousand electoral candidates by Iran's Guardian Council".
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