TEHRAN: The parliament of Iran on Wednesday approved all members of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s Cabinet.
This is the first time in over two decades that a President in Iran has been able to get all of his officials through the body. All 19 officials won approval in a vote.
Among those officials is Seyyed Abbas Araghchi Abbas Araghchi, 61, a career diplomat who will be the new foreign minister of Iran.
The diplomat was a member of the Iranian team negotiating that reached a nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015 that capped Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the nuclear deal and imposed fresh sanctions on Iran. Pezeshkian during his presidential campaign said that he would try to revive the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The candidate who received the most support from the Iran lawmakers was the country’s new defence minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, who received 281 votes out of 288. The Iranian parliament has 290 seats. Nasirzadeh has served as the chief of the Iranian air force from 2018 to 2021.
Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi received the lowest votes with 163. The only female minister proposed, Farzaneh Sadegh, a 47-year-old architect, received 231 votes.
