Iran vice president Zarif, former face of nuke deal, quits under hardliner pressure
Senior official who led talks with Western powers a decade ago tenders resignation to President Masoud Pezeshkian for second time, in latest blow to reformist leader
TEHRAN, Iran — A former Iranian foreign minister who was key to the country’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers reportedly tendered his resignation on Monday from the government of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, caving in to pressure from hardliners.
The resignation of Mohammad Javad Zarif signaled Tehran’s rapid retreat from its outreach to the West as US President Donald Trump intensifies sanctions on the country.
Zarif has served as vice president to Pezeshkian and has long been a target of hardliners within the country’s theocracy. He had tried to resign once before and it remained unclear whether Pezeshkian accepted his attempt to leave the government this time.
The development comes after Iran’s parliament on Sunday impeached Finance Minister Abdolnasser Hemmati, who once ran for the presidency signaling he’d be willing to talk to the US president directly.
While lawmakers focused on their criticism of Hemmati over Iran’s plummeting rial currency, his removal also underscored the danger faced by Pezeshkian, who won election last year promising to reach out to the West to get sanctions lifted.
“Pezeshkian may have worse days ahead,” warned Mohmmad Ebrahim Ansari Lari, a reformist and a political analyst.
A new resignation from Zarif
The state-run IRNA news agency reported on Monday that Zarif handed in his resignation to Pezeshkian late the previous night, though it was unclear if the president accepted it. It marked the second time Zarif has attempted to resign as Pezeshkian’s vice president for strategic affairs.
Writing Monday on the social platform X, Zarif said he met the day before with the head of the country’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei.
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.
“To avoid further pressure on the government, the head of the judiciary recommended that I resign and… I accepted immediately,” he added. “He recommended that I return to university.”
Zarif did not elaborate on what Mohseni-Ejei told him and there was no readout from the judiciary on the conversation. However, hardliners had targeted Zarif since Pezeshkian’s election, citing a law that bars people from Iranian public office if they have children holding foreign passports. Zarif’s children are naturally born US citizens as he had lived in the United States when serving as a local staffer with Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York.
That had not previously stopped Zarif from rising within Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
Zarif has used resignation announcements in the past in his political career as leverage, including in a dispute last year over the composition of Pezeshkian’s Cabinet. The president had rejected that resignation.
Iran’s position on talks harden
In recent months, things have changed drastically for Iran following Trump’s return to the White House. While Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader in August opened the door to negotiations with the West, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed it shut again in February.
Trump, while suggesting he was willing to negotiate with Tehran, also has embarked on a renewed “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions.
Pezeshkian himself on Sunday seemingly hewed closely to Khamenei’s new edict.
“My belief was that talks are better but the supreme leader has said we do not negotiate with the US and we will go forward in the direction of the statements of our top leader,” Pezeshkian said.
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 Trump’s first term as president, the United States pulled out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic.
The renewed US sanctions come as Iran has accelerated its production of near weapons-grade uranium, according to a report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog seen by The Associated Press. Iran maintains its program is peaceful, but US intelligence agencies assess Tehran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” Iranian officials also increasingly hint they could seek the bomb.
Both Israel and the US have said they won’t allow Iran to make a nuclear weapon, raising the possibility of further escalation after Tehran has twice attacked Israel during its war on the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.
The Times of Israel Community.