By the summer of 1513, he became joined as a vizier (minister) in the Imperial Council (diwan) and was responsible for the negotiations with Venice about possible Ottoman support to Venice against H.R.E. Charles V. In 1514, Selim I began his campaign against the Safavids which culminated in the Battle of Chaldiran. At the beginning of the campaign, Dukaginzade Ahmed Pasha was at the head of the vanguard of 20,000 sipahi. His activity in the early stages of the campaign in contemporary sources is unclear, but in the battle of Chaldiran on August 23, 1514, he and the other viziers were at the centre of the battle line next to Selim. Around September 7, when the Ottoman army reached Tabriz, the Safavid capital, Dukaginzade was in the delegation which went ahead of the army in order to accept the city's surrender to Selim.