Iran’s VP Zarif announces resignation

Iran’s Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif has tendered his resignation, Iranian state media reported. 

Javad Zarif said he resigned on advice from the head of the Judiciary to help “relieve pressure on the administration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.”

IRNA news agency reported citing sources that late on Sunday Zarif handed over his letter of resignation to President Pezeshkian, but the president has not yet made a decision.

Zarif said he took the advice of Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei immediately because he had always wanted to be “of help and not a burden," IRNA reported citing a public statement by Zarif on social media. 

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 was 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, according to IRNA. 

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, IRNA reported. 

This is the second time Zarif has tendered his resignation in the Pezeshkian administration. The first resignation, tendered just ten days after his appointment in mid-2024, was rejected by the president.