Tehran, 22 August 2024 (TDI): Iran’s parliament has approved all members of newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian’s Cabinet, the first time in over two decades a leader has been able to get all of his officials through the body.
All nineteen officials won approval in an afternoon vote, the first time that’s happened in the country since 2001.
Among those officials is Abbas Araghchi, 61, a senior ambassador who will be Iran’s new foreign minister.
Araghchi was a member of Tehran’s negotiating team that reached a nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015 that capped Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the United Sates out of the agreement and imposed more sanctions on Iran.
Pezeshkian said during his campaign that he would try to revive the agreement.
The candidate who received the most support from legislators was the country’s new defense minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, who secured 281 votes out of 288 present lawmakers. The chamber has 290 seats.
Nasirzadeh served as chief of the Iranian air force from 2018 to 2021.
Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi secured the lowest number of votes with 163.
The only female minister proposed, Housing and Road Minister Farzaneh Sadegh, secured 231 votes.
She is the first female minister in the country in more than a decade.
