Abbas Araghchi 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.

Araghchi is a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a seasoned pragmatist diplomat who was chief negotiator in nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers from 2013 to 2021.

He has served as Iran’s ambassador to Turkey and Japan 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, Araghchi 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.

Following the killing of Hamas terror group leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Araghchi took to X to send his “condolences to the great nation of Palestine” for the death of Haniyeh in a “terrorist attack by Israel.” Israel has not taken responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.

“Undoubtedly, the Israeli occupying regime will pay a heavy price, and it will not achieve its ominous goal of putting obstacles in the path of Iran’s new government at the outset of its endeavor,” he wrote.