Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s sudden offer to step down on Monday has sent shockwaves through the country’s political establishment and Iranian public.
Zarif announced late on Monday he would step down amid quarrels over Iran’s foreign policies as well as a global struggle to preserve a nuclear deal that the country’s top diplomat helped forge with world powers in 2015.
Fighting between parties and factions in Iran is a “deadly poison” in formulating foreign policy, Zarif said in an interview published by the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper on Tuesday, suggesting he may have resigned over pressure from hard-line elements opposed to his role in negotiating the landmark nuclear deal.
“We first have to remove our foreign policy from the issue of party and factional fighting,” Zarif said in the interview. “The deadly poison for foreign policy is for foreign policy to become an issue of party and factional fighting,” he added.
Many in Iran were caught off-guard by his offer to resign, adding to the country’s state of uncertainty following Washington’s withdrawal from the nuclear accord in May last year.
“I extend my gratitude for the generosity that dear and brave people of Iran and its respected authorities have had during past 67 months,” Zarif wrote on his Instagram page on Monday. “I humbly apologize for the inability to continue serving and for all the shortcomings during my service.”
His offer to resign was confirmed by deputy spokesperson for the foreign ministry, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, state-run news agency IRNA reported. However, the presidential chief of staff, in a tweet, “strongly denied” that President Hassan Rouhani had accepted the resignation. Zarif’s offer to stand down came a few hours after an unprecedented visit of the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a separate visit with President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran.