Iran’s hard-line parliament approves all members of president’s Cabinet, first time since 2001

Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s hard-line parliament has 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 U.S. out of the deal. Pezeshkian said during his presidential campaign that he would try to revive the nuclear deal.