Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad invited Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to Damascus, Iranian state media reported on Thursday.
The invitation from Assad, a close ally of Iran, comes days after Zarif resigned from his position as foreign minister.
“I apologize for my inability to continue serving and for all the shortcomings during my term in office,” Zarif said in a message posted on his verified Instagram account on Tuesday, thanking both Iranians and “respected officials” for their support “in the last 67 months.”
Zarif’s resignation was however rejected by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani a day after the shocking Instagram post.
“I believe your resignation is against the country’s interests and do not approve it,” Rouhani wrote in a letter to Zarif, the website said.
“I consider you, as put by the leader, to be ‘trustworthy, brave and pious’ and in the forefront of resistance against America’s all-out pressure,” he added, referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Assad met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran on Monday, marking his first visit to the Islamic Republic since the star of the Syrian war.
Zarif’s absence from Assad’s meetings, which included Rouhani and the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, was later linked to his resignation the day after.
Soleimani’s presence also sparked rumors that the commander, whose hard line policies stand in contrast to Zarif’s more moderate positions, would taker over the foreign ministry portfolio.
In a statement on the IRGC’s website, Souleimani quickly dismissed the rumors, saying Zarif “is in charge of foreign policy” and has “always been supported and approved by senior officials in the system, especially the supreme leader.”
“Some inconsistencies in the presidential office that have been raised have led to the absence of our country’s foreign minister at this meeting (with Assad).”
“The indiacations are that there has been no intention for Mr. Zarif to be absent from this meeting, and I must emphasize that he is the main foreign policy secretary of the Islamic Republic of Iran as the Foreign Minister of Islamic Republic of Iran” Soleimani said.
The American educated foreign minister, who has served as Rouhani’s foreign minister since August 2013, has been criticized heavily by Iranian hardliners after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May last year.
Zarif was Iran’s chief negotiator of the deal which saw an end to years of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s state media did not specify when the upcoming meeting between Zarif and Assad in Damascus will take place.