Key points
- Zarif’s resignation letter was received by President Masoud Pezeshkian: IRNA
- Zarif was Iran’s top diplomat between 2013 and 2021
TEHRAN: 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, according to AFP.
Iranian President 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 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.
According to AFP, 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 Iran.
Who is Javad Zarif?
According to the World Economic Forum, Zarif did PhD in International Law and Politics from Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. He served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran.
Zarif also worked as Deputy Minister for Legal and International Affairs; Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Iran to the UN, New York; Chairman, Sixth (Legal) Committee of the 47th UN General Assembly; Chairman, UNESCO Cultural Commission; Vice-President, UN General Assembly; Chairman, UN Disarmament Commission; Chairman, Political Committee, 12th Non-Aligned Movement Summit, Durban; in charge of the Political Committee, OIC Summit, Tehran; Head, Executive Committee.
