Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif apologizes for shortcomings in bizarre resignation on Instagram

  • Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif resigned from his post citing “shortcomings” in his work and thanking the Islamic Republic for giving him a chance in a bizarre Instagram post.
  • “I am apologising you for all the shortcomings…in the past years during my time as foreign minister.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif resigned from his post citing “shortcomings” in his work and thanking the Islamic Republic for giving him a chance in a bizarre Instagram post that took much of the world by surprise.

“I am apologising you for all the shortcomings…in the past years during my time as foreign minister … I thank the Iranian nation and officials” he wrote on his Instagram page jzarif_ir.

Iran’s ruling theocratic government operates on the will of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, making it rather opaque. Zarif’s apparently abrupt resignation came on the same day that Khamenei and General Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s foreign forces, met with Syria leader Bashar al-Assad.

Zarif as foreign minister routinely wowed even his enemies as he appeared for years to win public relations blitzes in nuclear negotiations with the US.

Read the article by Alex Lockie on Business Insider Australia.