You can read it in Arabic here, and check out MBN’s flagship Arabic-language Alhurra news platform (English version here).
This week’s edition of the briefing is a joint effort by our new Iran reporter Tara Rad, who is writing under a pseudonym, and me.
Here’s what you need to know. Iran’s oil minister has resigned days after a newspaper alleged a major financial scandal involving middlemen who sell Iranian oil abroad. President Masoud Pezeshkian has nominated a missile industry veteran sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.N. as the new defense minister. Hardline lawmakers have initiated a move to impeach Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi over his contact with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in New York. Parliament has given initial approval to a provision that would criminalize interviews with media the Intelligence Ministry designates as “hostile.” Iran says it is looking to wind power as well as solar to ease its electricity shortages. Finally, the UAE has refused more than 200 containers of Iranian fruit and vegetables and the exporters say they still do not know why.
Find out more below, and share your thoughts, analysis and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded the MBN Iran Briefing, please subscribe.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Given the recent mistake of the foreign minister in New York and his meeting with U.S. government officials without permission from the supreme leader of the Revolution, I have registered the impeachment motion against Mr. Araghchi in the parliament system.”
—Amirhossein Sabeti, Iranian MP.
TOP OF THE NEWS
One Out: Oil Minister Quits Amid a Scandal
Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad resigned for what the Iranian presidency called “personal reasons.” National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) chief Hamid Bovard was named acting minister. Paknejad’s resignation came days after allegations appeared in the Iranian newspaper Farhikhtegan that resellers Iran uses to sell its oil abroad owe the state oil company close to $2 billion. These resellers are known in Persian as “trustees” (تراستیها) and according to one Iranian press report , are used to evade U.S. sanctions and can be “foreigners, including Arabs and Indians,” or “an Iranian with a foreign passport who move[s] the money in his own name so that the direct connection to Iran [is] not apparent.”
Parliament’s energy commission has begun investigating the trustees. There’s speculation that rivalries within Iran’s oil industry may be driving the scandal. Referring to a sharp personality conflict between the former minister and Mohammad Shariatmadari, the CEO of Persian Gulf Holding, Iran’s largest petrochemical group, one Iranian analysis said that “rifts between the Ministry of Oil and Persian Gulf Holding caused Mohsen Paknejad’s tenure as Oil Minister to end sooner than expected.”
The resignation even drew the attention of U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who posted on X, “Iran has a new oil minister. Considering Iran has not loaded a single barrel of crude onto a vessel since August 25th, what is the oil minister managing?”
Meanwhile, excluding Iranian oil, reports indicate that last month’s oil flow from the Gulf reached 81% of pre-war levels.
The former oil minister’s troubles aren’t necessarily over. As one headline put it, “Paknejad is gone, but he must be held accountable for the trustees’ violations.” The accompanying analysis points the finger at him for many flaws during his two-year tenure, including “[t]he decline in oil revenues was another issue during Paknejad’s time; it fell from approx. $2.7 to $3 billion in October 2025 to $150 million later that fall.”
An Iranian woman aims a weapon during a military course for volunteers. Photo: AFP.
One In: New Defense Minister Nominee on U.S. and U.N. Sanctions List
President Masoud Pezeshkian has nominated Mehrdad Akhlaghi-Ketabchi as Iran’s new defense minister.
Akhlaghi-Ketabchi is not new to Iran’s defense establishment. He has spent years in the country’s missile and aerospace industries, previously heading the Aerospace Industries Organization, a Defense Ministry body involved in Iran’s missile program. He currently heads the Defense Industries Organization, another body under the ministry.
He is also under U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury’s sanctions office, OFAC, added Akhlaghi-Ketabchi to its sanctions list in 2008 under measures targeting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the time, he was listed in connection with the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, which is involved in Iran’s ballistic-missile program. The same affiliation earned him a place on a U.N. Security Council list a year earlier as part of sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile activities.
His U.S. sanctions record has since been updated several times. In 2016, OFAC added his connection to Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization to his listing. In 2020, it added another sanctions designation under measures targeting Iran’s conventional-arms activities.
Akhlaghi-Ketabchi does not have the job yet. Parliament must still approve his nomination.
One Under Attack: Hardliners Move to Impeach Araghchi
Amirhossein Sabeti filed an impeachment motion in Parliament against Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, although it has not yet been referred to the body’s presiding board. Sabeti argued that Araghchi met U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in New York last month without supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s permission. Filing a motion to impeach does not automatically put it on the parliamentary agenda. There’s disagreement about whether the contact on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly took place at the Americans’ request, as Iran has repeatedly insisted, whether prior authorization had been secured, and if such authorization allowed for direct talks or via intermediaries only.
A man uses a phone while sitting in a gazebo along the waterfront as vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. Photo: AFP.
Iranians Can’t Talk to Foreign Media
For Iranians, giving an interview to the wrong news outlet could soon become a crime.
Parliament has given initial approval to a provision restricting Iranian citizens from interviews or discussions with media outlets that the Intelligence Ministry publicly designates as “hostile.” It also covers individual online media figures and some media linked to foreign governments.
Breaking the rule could bring a “degree six” punishment under Iran’s penal code, a penalty ranging from six months to two years in prison.
Government officials are not covered by the provision.
The measure is part of a larger bill titled “Countering Foreign Infiltration.” The measure was already being drafted before last year’s 12-day war with Israel, but concerns about espionage and security breaches have renewed interest in the bill.
It covers much more than spying. The bill includes restrictions covering media contacts and some forms of cooperation with foreign institutions.
The bill still has to go through Iran’s legislative process, including review by the Guardian Council.
Iran Looks to the Wind
Iran is looking beyond solar power as it tries to expand its renewable energy usage, with officials now describing wind power as a major component of the country’s plans.
At an investment conference in Kerman, deputy for investment at Iran’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Organization Jafar Mohammadnejad said the organization was pursuing wind power alongside solar energy. Contracts had already been signed with investors, he said, and referred to plans for about 650 megawatts of wind capacity in a first phase, followed by another 1,500 megawatts.
Kerman is part of this plan. Officials say wind measurements have identified potential around Qaleh Ganj in the south of the province, although Kerman has yet to develop a wind power plant. Mohammadnejad called on the province’s large industrial companies to invest, saying that combining wind and solar generation could help provide electricity for major industries.
Iran certainly has the wind. A 2022 study in the journal Energies described the country as sitting in a wind belt, with an economic wind potential of about 18 gigawatts — dozens of times its current installed capacity.
Some of Iran’s strongest wind resources are farther east, particularly in Sistan and Baluchestan. The region is known for the powerful “120-day winds” of Sistan, and research has identified the area around Zabol as one of the country’s strongest locations for wind power. Mil-e Nader, northwest of Zabol, already has a 50-megawatt wind farm, and further development is planned there.
The bigger question is how much of it the country can turn into electricity.
Wind is a relatively small part of Iran’s renewable-energy system. The Energy Ministry said in September that the country had about 470 megawatts of nominal wind capacity and plans to raise that to nearly 1,500 megawatts by the end of the next Iranian year.
Wind has an advantage over solar: turbines can keep generating after sunset. Iranian energy officials have specifically presented wind as a complement to solar because of its ability to produce electricity at night. For a country that has struggled with recurring electricity shortages and restrictions on industrial users, that could make wind increasingly important.
Containers stacked along a pier at the Khor Fakkan Container Terminal in Sharjah Emirate. Photo: AFP.
When Iranian Fruit Gets Deported
The UAE refused to accept the more than 200 containers of Iranian fruit and vegetables, and the exporters who sent them there say they do not know why.
Sazandegi newspaper reports that the refrigerated containers are carrying around 4,000 tonnes of Iranian produce, worth an estimated $3 million. They include fruit, vegetables and fresh herbs. The newspaper said the fruit and vegetables had been “deported.”
The containers are now reportedly stranded around Abu Musa, an island controlled by Iran, while exporters try to work out what to do with them.
That is particularly urgent when the cargo is food, as fruit and vegetables cannot simply wait indefinitely while officials sort out a trade dispute. The longer the containers remain in limbo, the greater the risk that part of the shipment will spoil.
Reza Nourani, head of Iran’s National Agricultural Products Association, said Emirati authorities had not provided an explanation.
The UAE has detailed rules for agricultural imports. Fresh fruit and vegetables are inspected when they enter the country, and shipments require documents including a phytosanitary certificate. UAE regulations also include requirements concerning pesticide residues and plant health.
There is currently no evidence that any of those rules caused these particular Iranian shipments to be rejected.
Returned Iranian agricultural products have previously generated arguments over standards and pesticide residues, but applying those explanations to this case without evidence would be speculation.
For now, then, the story is strangely simple: more than 200 containers left Iran carrying thousands of tonnes of fresh produce. The UAE would not let them in. And the fruit came home.
