Iran’s new ministers: General Ahmad Vahidi, wanted by Interpol in car-bomb attack; Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi first woman minister

General Ahmad Vahidi, who is wanted by Interpol in connection with the bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and the country’s largest city, is to become the defence minister of Iran.

Photo: Ahmad Vahidi, Iran's new defense minister, is a terrorism suspect

Iranian legislators voted overwhelmingly to accept Ahmad Vahidi as defence minister on cabinet nominations put forward by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran.

Photo: Marzieh Vahid Dastjerd, Iran's new health minister

Iran’s parliament, called the Majlis, and now dominated by conservatives, also voted to appoint a woman, Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, a gynaecologist and obstetrician, as the minister for health.

Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi was one of three women whom President Ahmadinjad had put forward for parliament’s vote. The parliament rejected two other female nominees – for the posts of ministers of education and welfare.

Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi is the first female minister since the ‘Islamic revolution’ that took place in Iran in 1979.

While Iran’s parliament altogether dismissed three choices of President Mahmoud Ahmadinjad – the two female candidates plus Ahmadinjad’s choice for the minister for energy – it approved 18 nominees, including Massoud Mirkazemi as the minister for oil.

Iran’s state radio said that, despite Parliament’s rejection of President Ahmadinjad’s three minister-nominees, the cabinet can begin functioning.

President Ahmadinjad has scheduled the first meeting of the cabinet for September 6, 2009, the state radio added.

The selection of Ahmad Vahidi, who is one of the five prominent Iranians wanted by Argentina over the deadly car-bomb attack, had provoked indignation from Argentina in August 2009.

Argentina argues that Vahidi was “deeply implicated” in the bomb attack that took place in 1994, in which left 85 people were killed and 150 others were wounded.

The car-bomb attack on the building of the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (Amia) in Buenos Aires was the worst attack on a Jewish target outside of Israel since the World War II.

The government of Argentina, while condemning Ahmad Vahidi’s nomination as the minister for defence, has described it as an “affront” to Argentina’s legal system and also to the relatives of the 85 people who died and the 150 others who were wounded.

Interpol, the international police organisation, had, in November 2007, issued a ‘red notice’ for Ahmad Vahidi’s arrest. The ‘red notice’ alert issued to Interpol’s 187 member-nations is not an arrest warrant, though it is interpreted that way at times.

However, Iran has rejected complaints against Ahmad Vahidi and does not even acknowledge the existence of Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds Brigades – the terrorist group that Vahidi was said to be commanding at the time of the bomb attack in Buenos Aires.