ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Resigned Iranian presidential advisor Javad Zarif on Monday dismissed reports that he was involved in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the United States, calling them the "joke of the year."
“These rumors are more like a thirteen joke [Iran’s yearly joke day] that has already begun and is still ongoing,” Zarif told Iran’s state-owned IRNA news agency.
Zarif’s remarks came at the heels of reports by some local media claiming that, following a confidential meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran approved direct talks with Washington over its nuclear program.
Iran on March 27 announced that it had responded to US President Donald Trump’s letter through Oman, reiterating that it will not engage directly with the US so long as Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran continues.
Weeks prior, on March 7, Trump told Fox Business that he had sent a letter to Khamenei, signaling openness to nuclear negotiations. He also warned of military action against Iran in case it refuses to cooperate stating, “If we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them [Iran].”
After returning to office, Trump in early February restored his “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran, arguing that it is “too close” to a nuclear weapon. Despite this, the US President expressed openness to negotiating a new deal with Iran, though Iranian Supreme Leader, Khamenei, then deemed such negotiations as “unwise.”
The Iranian media reports further claimed that Khamenei’s top aide Ali Larijani, Zarif, and former defense minister Mohammad Forouzandeh, were appointed as negotiators on behalf of Tehran and that they would begin discussions in early June 2025.
Zarif, who played a central role in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal - formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)-, firmly rejected these claims. He added that he had not even seen US President Trump’s letter or Iran’s response to it, and knows nothing about its contents beyond what was reported in the media.
Amid the heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington, Zarif in early March submitted his resignation from his position as Iran’s vice president for strategic affairs, after Iran’s chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, reportedly advised him to leave the government.
The resignation notably came only weeks after Zarif had been facing criticism at home after he told an American journalist in Switzerland that enforcing a new compulsory hijab law in Iran was not part of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s agenda.
In December, the parliament’s security committee published a letter calling for his resignation, arguing that some of his family members held American citizenship.
In his early March resignation, Zarif also noted that he has remained silent “to prevent the interests of the country from being damaged by a flood of lies and deceptions.”
The resignation has not been officially accepted by the Iranian government, nor has it been rejected by the president, a government spokesperson said in March.
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