TEHRAN, Iran_ Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won lawmakers' approval nearly all of the nominees for his new Cabinet in an overwhelming show of support for an agenda criticized by some conservatives at home and threatened by an increasingly confrontational United States.
Parliament Sunday voted to reappoint Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, top Rouhani allies during his first term, and well as 14 other ministers. Energy Ministry nominee Habibollah Bitaraf was the only one rejected.
Addressing the parliament before the votes, Rouhani pointed to the 2015 nuclear deal that opened the economy for business, and said Iran can achieve more by being united. "We need to move forward. This is not the time to have proponents and opponents, we all need to help and act," he said.
Rouhani won a second four-year term as president in May on a pledge to press ahead with his policy of easing Iran's political isolation to achieve further sanctions relief for the economy. Rouhani will depend on moderate factions that increased their representation in parliament in elections last year.
His policy thrust has run up against President Donald Trump's opposition to the nuclear deal Trump has threatened to withdraw from the 2015 agreement that curbed Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, and since the start of Trump's term, the U.S. has applied new sanctions against Iran's ballistic missile program and its elite Revolutionary Guards.
Rouhani has also been challenged domestically by conservatives who say the nuclear deal has not delivered economic benefits to the majority of Iranians, and who point to the U.S. as an untrustworthy partner.
Countering opponents' calls for Iran to be self-reliant, Rouhani said modernizing Iran's aging industry and developing a manufacturing export sector would require foreign investment and technology.
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(Nour Al Ali contributed to this report.)
