The Islamic Republic will soon name its first female ambassador and she is the current spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, Marzieh Afkham, the Fars and Mehr news agencies both reported Monday.
The reports did not give any sources and did not say to what country Afkham would be sent.
The appointment does not require the approval of the Majlis, which is decidedly against giving executive posts to women. President Rohani has avoided nominating women to posts that require Majlis approval and would set off a battle royal with the legislature. But he has freely appointed women to posts that bypass the Majlis. For example, of his 12 vice presidents, four are currently women.
Rohani’s predecessor, Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad, nominated three women to his cabinet in 2009, setting off a barrage of furious criticism in the Majlis. In the end, the Majlis overwhelmingly rejected two of those nominees while approving Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi as health minister. Ahmadi-nejad later fired her when she publicly said the shortage of medicine in Iran wasn’t the result of US sanctions but caused by the Central Bank’s shortage of foreign exchange with which to order foreign medicines.
Afkham would be the Islamic Republic’s first female ambassador, but Iran’s second. The Shah named Mehrangiz Dolatshahi as ambassador to Denmark in the 1970s.