Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian submitted the list of his cabinet’s ministers to the parliament with former chief nuclear negotiator named as foreign minister, Iranian state media reported.

Abbas Araghchi is among a long list of ministerial candidates submitted to the parliament by Pezeshkian, and he is chosen to lead the country’s foreign affairs.

Holding a PhD in Political Thought from the University of Kent in the UK, Araghchi served closely to former Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, one of Pezeshkian’s strongest supporters, during the cabinet of Hassan Rouhani.

Between 2013 to 2021, Araghchi was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in the talks with world powers.

He was one of the senior members of the team that negotiated the landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and following the 2018 withdrawal of the US, he led six rounds of talks in Vienna before being replaced by hardliner Ali Bagheri Kani.

Also on the list of Pezeshkian’s ministers is Aziz Nasirzadeh, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and former commander of the country’s Air Force, as defense minister, and Abbas Aliabadi as the minister of energy.

Iran held early elections on June 28 after a helicopter crash claimed the lives of then president Ebrahim Raisi and several Iranian officials.

Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian was elected as Iran’s new president in a runoff round, beating hardliner Saeed Jalili by almost 3 million votes.

These were the first presidential elections since widespread protests across the country in 2022, following the death of Kurdish woman Zhina "Mahsa" Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police. The protests were met with violent police suppression.

The Iranian parliament is set to confirm Pezeshkian’s list of candidates by next week.