Iran’s president taps nuclear negotiator as foreign minister, woman for housing post
Masoud Pezeshkian nominates career diplomat Abbas Araghchi as FM, also proposes second woman minister since Islamic Revolution; selections await approval by hardline parliament
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian presented his cabinet to parliament on Sunday, notably including a woman and a perceived Western-friendly diplomat as the country’s foreign minister.
Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf read out the list of proposed ministers to lawmakers. The hardliner-dominated chamber will have two weeks to review qualifications and give a vote of confidence to the proposed ministers.
For the post of foreign minister, Pezeshkian named Abbas Araghchi, 61, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member and career diplomat who led nuclear negotiations for Tehran in 2013-2021.
Araghchi, who holds a PhD in political thought from the University of Kent, was chief negotiator on the team that reached a deal with world powers in 2015 to cap Tehran’s nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
In 2018, then-president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal and imposed more sanctions on Iran.
Pezeshkian, who took office in late July, had advocated during the election campaign to open Iran up to the world, vowing to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement and ease sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Following the killing of Hamas terror group leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31, when he was in Iran for Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony, Araghchi took to X to send his “condolences to the great nation of Palestine” for the death of Haniyeh in a “terrorist attack by Israel.” Israel has not taken responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
“Undoubtedly, the Israeli occupying regime will pay a heavy price, and it will not achieve its ominous goal of putting obstacles in the path of Iran’s new government at the outset of its endeavor,” he wrote.
In his proposed cabinet, Pezeshkian also tapped Farzaneh Sadegh, a 47-year-old woman, as roads and housing minister. Sadegh, currently a director in the ministry, would become only the second female minister in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It is unclear, however, whether she will be approved.
The hardline parliament seeks more cultural and social restrictions on women based on its interpretations of Islamic sharia. Many lawmakers voiced their opposition when her name was read by the speaker during Sunday’s session.
The only previous female minister to be approved by parliament since the revolution was in 2009 when then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secured a post for Marzieh Vahid Dastgerdi as health minister.
Pezeshkian proposed Eskandar Momeni, a relatively moderate police general, as interior minister. The ministry deals with enforcing the mandatory wearing of the Islamic veil on women.
In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for improper wearing of the hijab led to nationwide protests.
Pezeshkian, then a lawmaker, wrote at the time that it was “unacceptable in the Islamic Republic to arrest a girl for her hijab and then hand over her dead body to her family.”
In addition to calls for better relations with the West and a return to the nuclear accord, Pezeshkian has suggested that he wants less enforcement of the hijab law.
But the president has limited powers, and is tasked with implementing state policies outlined by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, who has held the post since 1989.
Pezeshkian is also likely to face opposition in passing legislation that supports his stated program, as the parliament is dominated by hard-liners who mainly supported other candidates during the June-July presidential election.
The reformist president has named as his future interior minister General Eskandar Momeni, a 60-year-old police commander and former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
General Aziz Nasirzadeh, a former commander of the Iranian Air Force and deputy chief of staff of the armed forces since 2021, is set to take the helm of the defense ministry.
The president has chosen as his future oil minister Mohsen Paknezhad, a 58-year-old executive director with a long career in the country’s energy industry.
Parliament is set to begin reviewing candidates on Monday and submit them to a vote by lawmakers starting Saturday.
In late July, Pezeshkian had announced that he would “consult and coordinate” with Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, to present the final list of ministers.
On Saturday, the president kept in his position the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, who has held the post since 2021.
Eslami was placed on a sanctions list by the United States and the European Union in 2008, when he was deputy defense minister.
