Zarif Asks People to Forgive Him; Amirabdollahian Says He Won’t ‘Tie Foreign Ministry to JCPOA’

Hossein Amirabdollahian, the proposed foreign minister of Ibrahim Raisi’s government, said on Sunday, August 22, during his competency review session in the Islamic Consultative Assembly that he will not ‘tie the Foreign Ministry to the JCPOA’ and will ‘be engaged in negotiations that are not exhausting.’

Six rounds of negotiations between Iran and world powers to revive the nuclear agreement JCPOA have so far yielded no results, and it remains unclear what approach Ibrahim Raisi’s government will take to continue negotiations.

Although the United States says it is ready to resume negotiations, Washington has emphasized that Iran’s opportunity to return to the negotiating table will not be unlimited.

Amirabdollahian also said he will ‘support the Axis of Resistance’; a term Iranian officials use to refer to Islamic Republic proxy groups in the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Lebanon.

During Amirabdollahian’s competency review session, a number of representatives spoke both in opposition to and in support of his appointment as foreign minister.

Ali Asghar Enabastani, representative of Sabzevar, opposing the proposed foreign minister of Ibrahim Raisi’s government, said: ‘There is a history of cooperation between Mr. Amirabdollahian and Messrs. Zarif and Larijani which concerns us somewhat.’

Hossein Amirabdollahian served for a period as deputy foreign minister for Arab affairs in Hassan Rouhani’s government but was dismissed by Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Mr. Zarif on Sunday bid farewell to his audience by releasing a video message and asked that people forgive him for his performance.

Zarif said in part of this message: ‘Forgive me, but to safeguard national interests, I could not always speak the way I wished, and could not even defend my performance.’

He also said: ‘Many of you disapproved of the silence or justification of certain policies and behaviors, which I myself have been critical of some of them, and some even accused me of self-interest and attempting to maintain my position.’

Critics and opponents of Mr. Zarif have previously criticized him on various issues for ‘justifying’ and ‘backing and forthing’ harmful policies of the Islamic Republic in the international arena.

Rouhani’s foreign minister, in a controversial interview that was not supposed to be published but was leaked to the media in May this year, said about the downing of the Ukrainian airplane by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: ‘The world says a missile hit the plane. If a missile really hit it, tell us so we can see how we can fix it.’

Donald Trump’s State Department had given Zarif the title of ‘supreme swindler’.