Iran's new President, Mr Mohammad Khatami, unveiled his cabinet yesterday naming a new oil minister and replacing the long-time foreign minister, Mr Ali Akbar Velayati, with the current ambassador to the United Nations. The choices represented a compromise between the left and right-wing factions in Iran's ruling Islamic clergy but included a number of relatively young and moderate technocrats close to the new President.
Contrary to expectations, no women were included in the list of 22 ministers that Mr Khatami, who swept to victory on a platform of social and economic change, submitted to the conservative-dominated parliament for approval.
Iran's UN ambassador, Mr Kamal Kharazi (53), a former director of the official IRNA news agency, was named to replace Mr Velayati, who served as foreign minister for 16 years and was influential in shaping Iran's hardline stance toward the West.
Mr Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, energy minister in the outgoing government of the former president, Mr Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was named to the key portfolio of oil minister, replacing Mr Gholamreza Aghazadeh.
A graduate in civil engineering from Tehran University, Mr Zanganeh was responsible for rebuilding Iran's power network following the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Mr Habibollah Bitaraf, a former governor general of Yazd Province and deputy energy minister, was named to replace Mr Zanganeh as energy minister.
The Speaker of parliament, Mr Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, a conservative hardliner who was defeated by the moderate Mr Khatami in the May 23rd presidential vote, said the legislature would vote on the new President's nominees on August 19th.
While no woman was named to the cabinet, Ms Massoumeh Ebtekar, a 36-year-old doctor and university professor, is expected to be named to the post of vice president in charge of environmental affairs, a job which does not require parliamentary approval.
She would be Iran's first female vice president since the Islamic revolution of 1979. The list of vice presidents is to be released at a later date.
The cabinet nominees have been the subject of open squabbling between left- and right-wing factions as Mr Khatami, a former culture minister, tries to get his cabinet through parliament, still reeling from the upset loss of its candidate in the presidential election.
The cabinet proposed by Mr Khatami yesterday retained several members of the outgoing government of Mr Rafsanjani, who stepped down as president after serving the maximum two four-year terms permitted under the constitution.
Mr Esmail Shushtari was retained as justice minister, Mr Issa Kalantari as agriculture minister and Mr Hussein Kamali, a political science graduate of Tehran University, as labour minister.
The most telling sign of the compromise with the conservatives was the choice of Deputy Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi as intelligence minister.
Several newspapers said Mr Khatami had to drop his first choice for the job, Mr Mohammad Mussavi-Khoenia, a radical and former spokesman of the hostage-takers at the US embassy in Tehran, because of heavy conservative pressure.
Mr Najafabadi replaces Mr Ali Fallahian who was implicated by a Berlin court in the murders of four Kurdish dissidents in the German city in 1992 in a case which has soured Iran's relations with the European Union.
Mr Ataollah Mohajerani, a moderate, was named to head the powerful ministry of culture and Islamic guidance.