Iran's parliament voted on Sunday to dismiss the country's transport minister, the first member of reformist President Mohammad Khatami's cabinet to be impeached since conservative lawmakers won a majority in February's polls.
Parliamentarians, who voted overwhelmingly to remove Ahmad Khorram, accused him of failing to improve Iran's dismal air, rail and road safety record and lambasted him for awarding a deal to run the capital's new airport to a foreign consortium. Lawmakers said it was the start of moves to bring down more ministers.
"Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari and Education Minister Morteza Haji are next in line," Timourali Askeri told Reuters after the debate.
Analysts believe the censure was a response by Iran's hard-liners to Khorram's resolve to allow Turkey's TAV engineering consortium operate Tehran's new airport, widely opposed by conservative MPs.
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