President Masoud Pezeshkian is forming his cabinet at a time when the risk of the Gaza conflict escalating into a wider regional war is growing after the recent assassinations of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut prompted threats of retaliation against Israel.
Following the death of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May, Pezeshkian won a snap election last month by promising to improve relations with the world, promote a pragmatic foreign policy and ease social restrictions at home.
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Pezeshkian’s cabinet proposal requires approval from lawmakers and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said parliamentary committees would begin reviewing his candidates on Monday.
Araqchi, 61, who served as Iran’s ambassador to several countries including Japan, played a key role in negotiating Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers, from which then-US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Araqchi subsequently led Iran’s negotiators during multilateral efforts (ultimately unsuccessful) to revive the pact through indirect diplomacy with Washington before being replaced by hardline leader Ali Bagheri Kani in 2021.
The powers of the president in the Islamic Republic are limited by those of the Supreme Leader, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, appoints the head of the judiciary and has the final say on major policies.
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Tensions between Iran and the West have escalated over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme and its threats to “harshly punish” Israel for Haniyeh’s assassination. Tehran and Hamas accuse Israel of carrying out the killing, although the latter has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the assassination.
Meanwhile, Iran’s president nominated Mohsen Paknezhad as oil minister, who has served as deputy oil minister overseeing hydrocarbon resources between 2018 and 2021.
Pezeshkian has also nominated Farzaneh Sadeq as minister of roads and transport. If approved by parliament, she will become only the second female cabinet minister in the history of the Islamic Republic.
The first was appointed in 2009 by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardliner. Under the president’s proposal, Raisi’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, would retain his post in the new cabinet.
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