New Iran Cabinet 'may worsen nuclear row'
Iran’s new president today nominated a Cabinet that featured hard-liners in key ministries and is likely to lead to more confrontation in the country’s dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Not one of the 21 ministers that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated is known to be pro-democratic reform in Iran. The nominees are widely seen as followers of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a noted conservative who has the final say on all state matters.
The parliament has to approve the Cabinet but, as the assembly is dominated by conservatives, it is expected to make few, if any, changes.
The proposed foreign minister is Manouchehr Mottaki, a conservative lawmaker who has criticised Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the Europeans, saying the country should adopt a tougher position and make no concessions.
Several other proposed ministers are either members of the Revolutionary Guards, or have a history of co-operating with the Guards and security agencies, which take hard-line positions on Iran’s nuclear program.
If the new Cabinet is confirmed, it is expected to adopt more aggressive positions with Europe, which has been trying to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program to avoid being taken to the UN Security Council by the US. Washington alleges that Iran has a secret plan to build nuclear bombs - a charge Tehran denies.
A former hard-line deputy intelligence minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, was named as interior minister. Ahmadinejad named as intelligence minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, a cleric whom reformist journalists regard as an unyielding opponent of press freedom.
The proposed Cabinet contained only one member of the outgoing government of former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who tried to moderate the Islamic social code and build bridges with the West. The centrist politician Mohammad Rahmati remained as transportation minister.
“All those who worked against Khatami’s reformist agenda have now been nominated to sit in the government,” the reformist writer Ali Reza Rajaei said.
“Most of them are either former military commanders or people in close touch with security agencies.”
Political scientist Saeed Madani agreed, saying that the appointment of people associated with security forces to executive positions would hamper Iran’s progress.
“The list means Iran will behave more secretly in its dealings, both with the nation and the international community,” he said, adding it would also put greater emphasis on security.
No fewer than three nominees are former members of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite unit of which Ahmadinejad himself is a former commander. They are proposed Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi and Energy Minister Parviz Fattah.
There are no women in the nominated Cabinet. Khatami, who was president from 1997 until this month, did not appoint women to his Cabinets, but he appointed two women as vice presidents.
Ahmadinejad named his close ally Ali Saeedlou as oil minister. Saeedlou was Ahmadinejad’s deputy when he served as mayor of Tehran until the June elections.
Ahmadinejad has promised to purge the hierarchy in Iran’s oil administration. Outgoing Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was at odds with some of the hard-liners who backed the new president in his election campaign.
Earlier this month, Iran rejected a package of aid measures, including imports of nuclear fuel, that Britain, France and Germany offered in exchange for abandoning uranium enrichment. Iran insists its nuclear program is only for generating electricity, and that it must enrich uranium as fuel for its atomic reactor. However, uranium enriched to a higher degree can be used for atomic bombs.
Last week, the UN nuclear agency expressed “serious concern” over Iran’s program and urged the country to put its latest nuclear activities on hold to reassure the US and others that it is not concealing a weapons program. Iran dismissed the agency’s statement.
