Zarif says he has resigned to help ‘relieve some of the pressure on Pezeshkian administration’

IRNA – Vice-President Javad Zarif says he has resigned on advice from the head of the Judiciary to help relieve pressure on the administration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

In a post on his X account early on Monday, Zarif wrote that he had visited Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei on an invitation by Mohseni Ejei on Saturday. During the meeting, the Judiciary chief had advised that, given “the conditions of the country, I return to [teaching at] the university to avoid more pressure on the administration.”

Zarif said he took the advice immediately because he had always wanted to be “of help and not a burden.”

He said he hoped that by leaving the administration, those hindering the realization of “the people’s will and the success of the administration” would be stripped of excuses.

“I continue to be proud of having supported the venerable Dr. Pezeshkian and wish him and other true servants of the people the best,” he said.

Late on Sunday, sources told IRNA that Zarif had tendered his resignation to the president, who is yet to make an official statement on the matter.

Since he was tapped as vice-president, Zarif has been taking intense heat by a group of lawmakers in Parliament who have argued that his appointment to a sensitive post is illegal because at least one of his children holds U.S. nationality.

According to Iranian law, individuals who hold foreign citizenship or whose immediate family members hold such citizenship cannot be assigned to sensitive posts in the Iranian government.

The Pezeshkian administration has forwarded a bill to the Parliament to modify the law so that it accommodates the recruitment of individuals whose children did not acquire foreign nationality by choice, as in Zarif’s case. The vice-president’s children were born in the United States while he was a student before being posted to Iran’s United Nations mission in New York.

The dispute was yet to be resolved while modifying legislation remained in the works, and even as Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei was said to be in favor of the reform of the law.