Masoud Pezeshkian, head of the Islamic Republic's government, on Monday, 5 October 2026, put forward Mehrdad Akhlaghi Ketabchi to the Islamic Consultative Assembly as his nominee for Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in a letter to parliament. The ministry had been run by a caretaker since former defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh was killed in US and Israeli strikes on 28 February 2026.
According to Radio Farda and media inside Iran, Akhlaghi is a senior Defence Ministry executive and previously served as managing director of the Aerospace Industries Organisation, the ministry's main missile-production arm. According to the Fararu website, then defence minister Hossein Dehghan appointed him head of the organisation in October–November 2014. Under parliamentary procedure, his programme will first be examined by the relevant committee, after which a confidence vote will be held.
A name on the sanctions lists
According to Radio Farda, Akhlaghi was placed on the sanctions list of UN Security Council resolutions because of his management of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group and his role in the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile programme, and he has remained on the sanctions lists of the European Union and the US Treasury ever since. His name was removed from the UN list on 18 October 2023 when the UN's targeted sanctions expired, but was added back when the sanctions were reinstated in late September 2025.
Fararu also wrote that, apart from a few management posts, little about Akhlaghi's background, and hardly even a photograph of him, has appeared in the media.
In the midst of war and crisis
The nomination comes as the Islamic Republic, after seven months of conflict with the United States, faces a naval blockade, halted oil exports and an open threat that the war will resume. The spokesman of the Islamic Republic's army said on Sunday that the range and speed of its missiles would be increased. The nomination came one day after the resignation of Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad was accepted; changes that are reshuffling Pezeshkian's cabinet in one of its most difficult periods.
Pezeshkian's choice for defence minister is a veteran missile-industry executive whose name is on US, European and UN sanctions lists.
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