Abbas Araqchi was nominated on Sunday as Iran's foreign minister by President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran's parliament speaker announced live on the Student News Network.
"From tomorrow morning, parliamentary commissions will start reviewing the plans of proposed ministers until the end of next week," parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said as Iran's parliament still needs to approve Pezeshkian's nominated cabinet.
Araqchi is a seasoned pragmatist diplomat who acted as chief negotiator in nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers from 2013 to 2021.
He has served as Iran's ambassador to Japan and Finland, and held the role of deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific for two years before becoming spokesperson of the ministry in 2013 for a short period.
When Mohammad Javad Zarif was foreign minister, Araqchi was the second most influential official at the foreign ministry and held roles like deputy for legal and international affairs and deputy for political affairs.
He holds a PhD in Political Thought from the University of Kent.
Mohsen Paknezhad has also been nominated as Iran's oil minister by Pezeshkian, Baqer Qalibaf announced.
Paknezhad served as Deputy Minister of Oil for the supervision of hydrocarbon resources from 2018 to 2021.
From 2000 to 2007, Paknezhad was also a member of the board of directors of the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company. From 2005 to 2007, he was the Planning Manager of the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company, and from then until 2013, he served as the Deputy Director of Integrated Planning at the National Iranian Oil Company, according to the Ministry of Oil's Shana news network.
Paknezhad holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology.
Pezeshkian named Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh, an F-14 Tomcat pilot, as defense minister. He was chief of the Iranian Air Force in 2018-2021. This would be the first time that a member of Iran's air force headed the defense ministry.
Pezeshkian proposed Farzaneh Sadegh as roads and housing minister. Sadegh, 53, is currently a director in the ministry. She would become only the second female minister in Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Pezeshkian also proposed to retain current Intelligence Minister Ismail Khatib and current Justice Minister Amin Hossein Rahimi. Pezeshkian also named the current minister of industries, Abbas Aliabadi, as energy minister. On Saturday the president also reappointed Mohammad Eslami as chief of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and one of several vice presidents. They all held their posts under President Ebrahim Raisi, who died alongside Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahain in a May helicopter crash.
