Tehran, Dec 27 (IANS) Iran’s Health and Medical Education Minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi – the Islamic republic’s first woman minister – has been sacked by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, media reports said Thursday.
Ahmadinejad later appointed Mohammad-Hassan Tariqat-Monfared as the acting minister of health, reported Xinhua, citing the Fars news agency.
The first woman minister in Iran since the Islamic republic was founded in 1979, Vahid-Dastjerdi was appointed in September 2009.
The Mehr news agency said the conflict with Vahid-Dastjerdi started as some government officials, probably including the Iranian president, urged the health minister to fire the chief of Tehran Medical Science University, Baqer Larijani, but she refused to do so.
Further, Vahid-Dastjerdi recently criticised the government for not allocating enough foreign currency for the import of medicine, a claim rejected by Ahmadinejad.
