Zarif resigns from VP post over ‘pressure and slander’
Iran’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has resigned from his post.
“Zarif’s resignation letter was received by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has not yet responded,” the official IRNA reported, without giving further details.
In a Monday post on X, Zarif said he had “faced the most horrible insults, slander and threats against myself and my family, and I have gone through the most bitter period of my 40 years of service.”
He added, “To avoid further pressure on the government, the head of the Judiciary recommended that I resign and... I accepted immediately.”
Since he was tapped as vice-president, Zarif has been taking intense heat by a group of ultra-conservative lawmakers in Parliament who have argued that his appointment to a sensitive post is illegal because at least one of his children holds US nationality.
According to Iran’s Constitution, individuals who hold foreign citizenship or whose immediate family members hold such citizenship cannot be assigned to sensitive posts in the Iranian government.
Pezeshkian, who took office in July, named Zarif as his vice president for strategic affairs on August 1 but Zarif resigned after less than two weeks, before returning to the post later in the month.
Zarif was Iran’s top diplomat between 2013 and 2021 in the government of moderate president Hassan Rouhani.
He became known on the international stage during lengthy negotiations for the 2015 nuclear accord formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The deal was effectively torpedoed three years later when, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, the United States pulled out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic.