Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif announces resignation
Official who negotiated nuclear deal apologises to nation but gives no reason for exit
Javad Zarif, who made the announcement on Instagram, played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
The Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has resigned without warning, offering an apology to the nation as the nuclear deal he negotiated with world powers stands on the verge of collapse after the US withdrew from it.
The veteran diplomat first offered a vague Instagram post with an “apology” for his “inability to continue to his service”. The post included a drawing of Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad, as Monday marked the commemoration of her birth.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, confirmed to the state-run IRNA news agency minutes later that Zarif had resigned but gave no reason for his departure.
On Sunday, Zarif criticised Iranian hardliners in a speech in Tehran, saying: “We cannot hide behind imperialism’s plot and blame them for our own incapability.
“Independence does not mean isolation from the world,” he said.
Zarif’s resignation leaves Iran’s relatively moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, without one of his main allies in pushing the Islamic Republic toward more negotiation with the west.
Analysts have said Rouhani faces growing political pressure from hardliners in the government as the unravelling nuclear deal further strains the country’s economy.
The US-educated son of a wealthy family, Zarif overcame hardline objections and western suspicions to strike the accord with world powers in which Iran promised to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
The deal later faced a challenge from Donald Trump, who withdrew the US from the accord, fuelling doubts of those in Iran still wary of the US decades after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Zarif himself faced withering criticism at home once for even shaking hands with the then president, Barack Obama.
There was no immediate reaction from the US. However, officials in the Trump administration have increased their pressure on Iran on social media. One state department official tweeted an unflattering gif of Zarif saying: “How do you know @JZarif is lying? His lips are moving.”
Zarif served as Iran’s ambassador to the UN from 2002 to 2007, first under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami and then under the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad wanted him replaced, but the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, intervened to keep him in the position for another two years as Iran soon found itself an international pariah over its nuclear programme. Iran insisted the programme was for peaceful purposes, while the west claimed it could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Secret talks between the US and Iran in Oman became full-fledged negotiations over its nuclear programme. During the talks, Zarif met the then US secretary of state, John Kerry, more than 50 times – something unimaginable only years earlier.
