Iran’s former top diplomat Zarif resigns from VP post

TEHRAN (AFP): Iran’s former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has resigned as vice president, state media said Monday.

“Zarif’s resignation letter was received by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has not yet responded,” the official IRNA news agency 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.

“To avoid further pressure on the government, the head of the judiciary recommended that I resign and… I accepted immediately,” he added.

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.