( AP ) - Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has replaced Iran's key oil and industry ministers, a major Cabinet reshuffle widely seen Monday as increasing his control over industries that are the source of most of the country's revenues.
Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Mahaneh and Industry Minister Ali Reza Tahmasebi have resigned and been replaced by caretaker ministers, the official IRNA news agency said late Sunday. But Iran's major newspapers said Monday the two effectively had been dismissed by Ahmadinejad.
State-run media gave no reason for the alleged dismissals and only carried statements from the president, who named the head of the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Gholam Hossein Nozari, as oil caretaker minister, and a Tehran chain store manager, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, as industry caretaker minister.
Ahmadinejad was elected on a populist agenda in 2005, promising to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty and tackle unemployment. His failure to keep those promises has provoked increasingly fierce criticism from both conservatives and reformists in recent months.
Ahmadinejad had promised to clamp down on what he claimed was the country's oil "mafias." He was forced to accept Mahaneh as oil minister after his two nominations for the post were rejected by Parliament.
"Ahmadinejad now feels one of his own men can get a vote of confidence from the parliament and increase his control over the oil industry," reformist political analyst Saeed Shariati said.