Iranian President Pezeshkian submits cabinet line-up to Parliament
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Iran's newly-elected president has submitted his letter to Parliament for his cabinet line-up, consisting of politicians across the political spectrum.
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An undated handout image released on July 6, 2024, showing the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian who became the ninth president of Iran with 16,384,403 votes. (Office of the Iranian President)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian presented his new cabinet line-up through a letter to the Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Sunday, marking the legislative body's review of the proposed ministers' qualifications.
The Iranian Parliament's specialized committees are expected to begin deliberations on the president's cabinet line-up on Sunday afternoon, working in two shifts over the next four days.
The proposed ministers are due to be discussed during the plenary sessions as of August 17.
Meet the candidates
The newly-elected president suggested Abbas Araghchi as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. The proposed politician was part of the Foreign Ministry in 1989, serving as chargé d'affaires of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Organization of Islamic Conference in Jeddah in the early 1990s.
The senior diplomat was also ambassador to Finland for four years, serving between 1999 and 2003. Additionally, between 2007 and 2011, he was the ambassador to Japan, later working as the political deputy at the Foreign Ministry from 2017 to 2021 under former President Hassan Rouhani's government while serving as the nation's chief nuclear negotiator amid talks with the P5+1.
For the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, Pezeshkian proposed academic, politician, and economist Abdolnaser Hemmati, who was governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) from 2018 to 2021.
Attaining a third-place result in the Iranian presidential elections in 2021, Hemmati was the sole candidate from the Modern Front of Iranian politicians.
The list of cabinet members proposed by Pezeshkian:
- Alireza Kazemi for the Ministry of Education
- Sattar Hashemi for the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology
- Esmaeil Khatib for the Ministry of Intelligence
- Abdolnaser Hemmati for Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance
- Abbas Araghchi for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Mohammadreza Zafarghandi for Ministry of Health and Medical Education
- Ahmad Meydari for the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare
- Gholamreza Nouri Ghezelcheh for Ministry of Agriculture Jihad
- Amin-Hossein Rahimi for Ministry of Justice
- Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh for the Ministry of Defence
- Farzaneh Sadegh for Ministry of Roads and Urban Development
- Mohammad Atabak for Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade
- Hossein Simaei Sarraf for Ministry of Science, Research and Technology
- Abbas Salehi for Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance
- Eskandar Momeni for Ministry of Interior
- Reza Salehi-Amiri for Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts
- Mohsen Paknejad for Ministry of Oil
- Abbas Aliabadi for the Ministry of Energy
- Ahmad Donyamali for the Ministry of Sport and Youth
Pezeshkian names Javad Zarif Iran's vice president
Iran's president Pezeshkian appointed Mohammad Javad Zarif, the chief negotiator of the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, as vice president for strategic affairs, Iranian media reported on August 1.
"You are tasked with overseeing major national and international developments as well as how far we succeed in achieving the goals of the constitution," Pezeshkian stated in the letter of appointment, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Zarif, who served as foreign minister from 2013 to 2021 under President Hassan Rouhani, became a prominent figure on the international stage during the lengthy negotiations for the 2015 agreement.
The deal was significantly undermined three years later when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the agreement and reimposed severe sanctions against Iran.
