Iran’s hardline parliament approves all members of president’s Cabinet, first time since 2001

Iran’s hardline parliament on Wednesday approved all members of 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 19 officials won approval in an afternoon vote, the first time that’s happened in Iran since 2001. Among those officials is Abbas Araghchi, 61, a career diplomat who will be Iran’s new foreign minister.

Araghchi was a member of the Iranian negotiating team that reached a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015 that capped Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal and imposed more sanctions on Iran. Pezeshkian said during his presidential campaign that he would try to revive the nuclear deal.

The candidate who received the most support from lawmakers was the country’s new defense minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, who received 281 votes out of 288 present lawmakers. The chamber has 290 seats.

Nasirzadeh was chief of the Iranian air force from 2018 to 2021.

Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi received the lowest number of votes with 163.

The only female minister proposed, Housing and Road Minister Farzaneh Sadegh, a 47-year-old architect, received 231 votes. She is the first female minister in Iran in more than a decade.