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    Iran’s vice-president and most prominent reformist resigns

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    Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s most prominent reformist, has resigned from the government, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official.He implied the move was endorsed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, although he did not name him in his resignation letter as he stepped down as vice-president for strategic affairs.His departure, a hammer blow to the still relatively new government of President Masoud Pezeshkian, follows the impeachment of the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, as Iranian conservatives go on the offensive using the continued decline in the national currency as a reason to demand a change of course.The double removals pushed the Iranian stock market into a further tailspin as Iranian businesses sensed that the political path to reopening commerce with the west was fast being shut down by conservatives that never reconciled themselves to Pezeshkian’s victory.Donald Trump’s decision to try to restore maximum economic sanctions against Tehran has undercut those Iranian reformists seeking to come to a new global agreement covering the oversight of its nuclear programme.Zarif – who resigned before, in August, only to return to government shortly after – has faced incessant criticism for his American-born children allegedly being dual Iranian-US citizens.His critics, many of them opponents of talks with the US over its nuclear programme, have claimed his appointment breaches a 2022 law that debars individuals with ties to the west from holding senior positions.The nationality of his children, dating to his period as a diplomat based in the US, was one reason why the vice-president tried to step down previously shortly after joining Pezeshkian’s administration in August 2024.Zarif, who was Iran’s top diplomat between 2013 and 2021 in the government of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani, had campaigned alongside Pezeshkian for the presidency on a near-joint ticket. Zarif has been a lightning rod for criticism of the reformist government led by those who lost the presidential election.The then-foreign minister became known on the international stage during lengthy negotiations for the 2015 nuclear accord formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The agreement led to the lifting of western sanctions in return for independent UN-led inspections to ensure Iran’s nuclear programme was purely for civilian use.The deal was torpedoed three years later when, during Trump’s first term as president, the US pulled out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.View image in fullscreenBut, in his resignation note, Zarif implied his latest departure from government was not voluntary. It was said a high-ranking official had instructed Pezeshkian to return him to university. Pezeshkian refused, instead asking the official to directly relay the instruction to Zarif.After a meeting with the official in question, the vice-president for strategic affairs reluctantly agreed to submit his resignation.Zarif has always been seen as the most articulate exponent of Iranian foreign policy to western audiences. A career diplomat, he has repeatedly called for the foreign ministry to be given clearer authority over international relations, and not to be contradicted by the independent foreign policy led by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Earlier on Saturday, the Iranian parliament had voted by 182 votes to dismiss Hemmati, who was also previously governor of the Iranian central bank. He had been in office for only six months and 12 days, the fastest impeachment in the history of the Iranian revolution dating to 1979.Despite the presence of Pezeshkian in the parliament in a display of solidarity, Hemmati failed to fend off the vote of no confidence and was dismissed from his position. The Iranian parliament is dominated by hardliners mainly elected in 2024, and has never reconciled itself to the surprise election of Pezeshkian to the presidency later in the summer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPezeshkian, deeply aware that his government was likely to be undermined by society’s unelected officials, had continually emphasised the need for consensus – but the events of the past 48 hours suggests he failed.Explaining his resignation, Zarif did not identify the person with whom he met, saying instead: “Yesterday, I went to meet him at the invitation of the head of the judiciary. Referring to the country’s conditions, he recommended that I return to university to prevent further pressure on the government, and I immediately accepted.”The resignation brought no relief to the Iranian stock market, which plunged further in the red.Zarif expressed his resentment at his treatment. He said: “Although I faced the most ridiculous insults, slanders and threats against myself and my family in the past six months, and even within the government, I spent the most bitter 40 years of service, I persevered in the hope of serving.“I have not been and will not be one to run away from hardships and difficulties in the path of serving this land and country, and in the past 40 or so years, I have endured so many insults and slanders for the small role I have played in advancing national interests, from ending the Iran-Iraq war to finalising the nuclear file, and I have held my breath to prevent the interests of the country from being damaged by a flood of lies and distortions.”He added: “I hope that by stepping aside, the excuses for obstructing the will of the people and the success of the government will be removed.”Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformists Front, an alliance of smaller parties, said she did not know of any way Iran’s economic problems could be lifted without ending economic sanctions, and taking the steps necessary to be removed from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that oversees global transparency in financial transactions.Conservatives have pointed to the humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by Trump in his recent Oval Office encounter as a warning to those in Iran who believe it is possible to negotiate with the US president.Opponents of Hemmati, led by the conservative Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, admit his dismissal is part of a wider campaign against the government, including Hemmati’s efforts to reconnect the Iranian economy to the west by removing Iran from the FATF blacklist.Abolfazl Abu Torabi, the MP for Najafabad, told an Iranian newspaper recently: “I believe that the problems of the foreign exchange market in the country will not be solved by impeaching the minister of economic affairs and finance. This is a fact. It is the government’s approach that needs to be reformed, because according to a report by the parliamentary research centre, economic growth has decreased by 1% over the past six months.” He claimed Hemmati’s attitude had led to inflationary expectations. More

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      Netanyahu seeks to draw Trump into future attack on Iranian nuclear sites

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      Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that, with Donald Trump’s support, his government will “finish the job” of neutralising the threat from Iran, amid US reports that Israel is considering airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the coming few months.Trump has said he would prefer to make a deal with Tehran, but also made clear that he was considering US military action if talks failed, and his administration has laid down an early maximalist demand: Iranian abandonment of its entire nuclear programme.“All options are on the table,” the US national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News on Sunday. The new administration will only talk to Iran, Waltz added, if “they want to give up their entire programme and not play games as we’ve seen Iran do in the past in prior negotiations”.Earlier this month, Trump offered the Iranian regime a stark choice.“I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear,” he told the New York Post. “I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it.”In politics as in business, Trump’s vaunted “art of the deal” has relied heavily on bluster and threats, but analysts question how well that will work with Tehran. They also warn that the window for a diplomatic resolution to the standoff with Tehran will get narrower with each passing month, as Iranian nuclear capabilities progress, and Netanyahu works to persuade Trump to participate in joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities while it is at its most vulnerable.Israel’s prime minister has tried and failed to convince successive US administrations to take part in military action against Iran, including Trump’s. During his first term in the White House, Trump declined, in line with his aim of keeping the US out of foreign wars.In 2018, however, Trump did fulfil another Netanyahu request, withdrawing the US from a three-year-old multilateral agreement that had constrained Iran’s programme in return for sanctions relief. Since then, Iran has pushed forward with nuclear development and now produces increasing amounts of 60%-enriched uranium, which means it is a small technical step away from the production of weapons-grade fissile material.Tehran insists it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon and remains a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could upend that policy if Iran’s nuclear sites came under threat.Israel and Iran launched a series of tit-for-tat attacks on each other last year, culminating in substantial Israeli airstrikes on 25 October that inflicted significant damage on Iran’s air defences.That damage, combined with Israel’s crippling campaign over the past year against Iran’s most important ally in the region, Hezbollah, has left Iran in its most militarily vulnerable state for decades.View image in fullscreenStanding alongside the new US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Sunday, Netanyahu made clear he wanted to take advantage of that vulnerability.“Over the last 16 months, Israel has dealt a mighty blow to Iran’s terror axis. Under the strong leadership of President Trump, and with your unflinching support, I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job,” he said.US intelligence agencies have been briefing reporters over the past week that they believe Israel is likely to attack Iranian nuclear sites in the first half of 2025. But the intelligence assessments also underlined Israeli reliance on US support in the form of aerial refuelling, intelligence and reconnaissance. US officials also said such strikes would, at most, set back Iran’s programme by a few months, and could trigger Tehran’s decision to take the decisive step towards making weapons-grade uranium.Whatever the misgivings in Washington, the Trump administration approved the sale earlier this month of guidance kits for bunker-busting BLU-109 bombs, likely to be essential in inflicting damage on Iran’s most deeply buried enrichment plant at Fordow.Netanyahu was the first foreign visitor to be invited to the White House after Trump’s re-election, and according to the Washington Post, the two leaders discussed “several possible levels of American backing, ranging from active military support for a kinetic strike – such as intelligence, refuelling or other assistance – to more limited political backing for a coercive ultimatum”.Raz Zimmt, a research fellow and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said there was another clock ticking on diplomacy with Iran. Under the 2015 nuclear agreement, its remaining signatories, including the UK, France and Germany, can trigger a “snap back” of all international sanctions on Iran, but that leverage expires in October this year, giving European capitals the options of “use it or lose it”. If the mechanism is triggered, it could lead to a further escalation, Zimmt said.“I think there is a very limited diplomatic window of opportunity until August or September, to reach some kind of settlement between Iran and the US,” he said. “If there is no agreement by then … I think it will be much easier for Netanyahu to get not just a green light [from Washington] but perhaps some kind of military capabilities which will make it easier for Israel to achieve a broader and more effective impact.”Netanyahu regularly describes Trump as the “best friend” Israel ever had in the White House, a description echoed by Rubio and other administration officials, but that friendship will be put to a decisive test as Israel continues to press the case for an attack on Iran.Ariane Tabatabai, a Pentagon policy adviser in the Biden administration, said it would fuel “tension between the ‘restraint’ camp in the administration and the more traditional Republicans who are more inclined toward a more forceful approach to Iran”.“It’s not clear yet in these early days which group will have more influence in the inter-agency process and ultimately drive policy, but that’ll be a factor as well.” Tabatabai said.Trump prides himself in keeping the US out of foreign wars, but he has shown himself ready to take military action against Tehran, ordering the assassination by drone of a Revolutionary Guards commander, Qassem Suleimani, in Baghdad in January 2020.Saudi Arabia is reportedly offering to mediate to avoid a conflagration, but even if Trump wanted to hammer out a deal, argued Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, Trump’s browbeating style of negotiation could easily backfire when it came to Tehran.“The Trump style is he goes in heavy,” Vatanka said. “But Ali Khamenei has to be extremely careful how he responds to Trump so his personal image is not damaged.”“Iran has been weakened in the region – no doubt about it – but they still claim to be leading proponents of the Islamic cause who stand up to western bullying,” he added. “So what might work with certain countries in Europe or in Latin America will not necessarily work with the Iranian regime.” More

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      The Guardian view on the Iranian nuclear deal: hopes grow for the JCPOA, but time is tight | Editorial

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      Good news does not always arrive in obvious forms. Six years ago, the Iran nuclear deal was a diplomatic triumph earned by a long and painful process. This weekend saw a much more modest but equally necessary victory. Though Iran has reduced the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access for ensuring compliance with the deal, a three-month agreement reached on Sunday will allow continued monitoring. As the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, observed, it “salvages the situation for now”. The fear has been that though Tehran’s non-compliance has been carefully calibrated to date, its next steps might be irreversible.After four years of havoc wrought by the Trump administration, which abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and did its best – or worst – to kill the deal, this is welcome news. It indicates new political will and flexibility on the part of Iran as well as the US. There is now a real prospect of informal talks, brokered by the EU. Tehran appears reassured that the Biden administration does not plan to leverage Donald Trump’s sanctions to gain more concessions, as it had suspected. So there is more time on the clock – but not much. The supreme leader’s speech on Monday, saying that Iran could enrich uranium up to 60% if needed is a reassurance to hardliners internally as well as a reminder to the US. A short-term fix must pave the way for a longer-term solution. On the US side, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and appointments, alongside its coordination with the “E3” – Germany, France and the UK – indicate an eagerness to make progress. Both governments face formidable domestic opposition. Joe Biden has a huge agenda and limited political capital. In Iran, the short term IAEA deal was bitterly attacked in parliament. Elections in June are likely to see hardliners more hostile to the US prosper, though a more unified political establishment might in some ways simplify matters. In moving before President Hassan Rouhani leaves office in August, the two sides will be dealing with familiar faces and the US can draw on his attachment to the deal. The longer diplomacy takes, the more progress Iran will make on its nuclear programme.Credit is due to the E3 for shoring up the JCPOA against the odds, despite intense pressure from the Trump administration and its inability to find an effective economic mechanism for support. That commitment has paid off. But much more still needs to be done to save the deal. The US does not want to look like it is going easy on Tehran. But it could quietly end its obstruction of Iran’s $5bn (£3.5bn) IMF request for Covid relief, or give the nod to the release of frozen funds in other countries under arrangements ensuring they are used for humanitarian purposes.The ultimate obstacle is the credibility deficit left by Mr Trump. Iran is all too aware that a new administration may not only discard but trample on its existing commitments. That means that a “more for more” process to go beyond the deal and resolve outstanding issues regarding missiles and regional relations will be ultimately be more necessary than ever. The Trump years have shown that a narrow deal like the JCPOA cannot be stable in the current environment. But there can be no progress without a return to it. More

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      Biden presidency 'may herald new start for Saudi-Iranian relations'

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      An opportunity for a new beginning between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been presented by Joe Biden’s presidency, two leading Saudi and Iranians close to their diplomatic leaderships are proposing in an article in the Guardian today.The article is co-written by Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi Arabian chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, and Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat and now a nuclear specialist based at Princeton University.Their proposals are the fruit of a track 2, or backchannel initiative that has been under way privately for months.Their discussions are one of the few forms of private dialogue under way between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and to the extent that their discussions have been approved by serving diplomats in both capitals the initiative may signal a new willingness on both sides to the use the advent of the Biden presidency to explore an end to the years long enmity between the two countries.In an interview with the reformist Iranian newspaper Etemaad last week, the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, hinted at a new approach. He also accepted that opportunities for dialogue with Riyadh had been missed, adding that it was imperative that Iran was the pioneer in this enterprise.He said that “we have no territorial claim or interest in accessing the natural resources of other regional countries; therefore, it is Iran that can initiate this effort from a position of wealth. We shouldn’t wait for others.”Sager and Mousavian warn of the consequences if Saudi Arabia and Iran remain in conflict, writing that “we remain at the mercy of a single miscalculation that could turn the protracted cold war between our states hot, potentially ushering in disastrous consequences for the entire region”.They claim that both countries perceive the other as seeking to dominate in the region, with Riyadh convinced that Iran is trying to encircle the kingdom with its allied proxy supporters while Tehran views Saudi Arabia as in alliance with the US to undermine the Islamic Republic.“Riyadh charges Iran with interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq; Tehran sees Saudi Arabia doing the same in these very countries.”They urge both sides to agree – perhaps with the help of the UN – a set of principles around non-interference, the inviolability of national boundaries, rejection of violence, respecting the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, respect for religious minorities and abandonment of the use of proxy forces to advance national interests. The principles also support the free flow of oil and navigation, and rejection of the procurement of weapons of mass destruction.The authors stress: “Postponing de-escalation would be a grave mistake, as the region has proved time and again that on the rare occasion that opportunities for constructive dialogue present themselves, they must be grasped swiftly before they vanish.”They admit that the task may seem impossible, but claim that both sides have taken steps to show they are willing to avoid an inescapable zero-sum confrontation, for instance by quiet cooperation over facilitating Iranian Muslim participation in the hajj pilgrimage.
On Thursday the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was reported as saying Saudi Arabia may need to be involved in any follow on to the Iran nuclear deal signed by Iran, the US, three European powers, China and Russia. There is a widespread expectation that if the US and Iran could get back into mutual compliance with the deal discussions about Iran’s relations with its regional neighbours would have to follow. More

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      Trump 'considered striking Iran's nuclear sites' after election loss

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      Donald Trump asked top aides last week about the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming weeks, according to a New York Times report.
      During a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, the outgoing US president asked several top aides, including the vice-president, Mike Pence, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, “whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks”, the newspaper says.
      The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike”, warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, the Times writes.
      Trump reportedly asked the question after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was continuing to stockpile uranium.
      According to the Times, the most likely target of such a strike would have been Natanz, where the IAEA reported that Tehran’s “uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr Trump abandoned in 2018”, three years after it was signed in an attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
      Iran has long been Trump’s bete noire, and he reintroduced sanctions then tightened them even further after scrapping the nuclear accord.
      European partners in the accord, which have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, hope for a renewed diplomatic approach after Joe Biden’s election victory on 3 November, although Trump refuses to concede defeat.
      The Trump administration has pledged to increase the punitive measures, which some critics see as an attempt to build a “wall of sanctions” that Biden would have difficulty dismantling when he takes office next year. More

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      Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US

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      The extent of US isolation at the UNhas been driven home by formal letters from 13 of the 15 security council members opposing Trump administration attempts to extend the economic embargo on Iran.The letters by the council members were all issued in the 24 hours since the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, came to the UN’s New York headquarters to declare Iran in non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.Under that deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), comprehensive UN sanctions on Iran would be restored 30 days after the declaration. But almost every other council member has issued letters saying that the US has no standing to trigger this sanctions “snapback” because it left the JCPOA in May 2018.The US has said it is still technically a participant because it is named as one in a 2015 security council resolution endorsing the JCPOA. The argument was rejected by France, the UK and Germany even before Pompeo made his declaration.Since then, Reuters reported that it had seen letters from Russia, China, Germany, Belgium, Vietnam, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Tunisia, all rejecting the US position.Only the Dominican Republic has yet to issue a formal letter on the subject. Last week the Caribbean state was the only security council member to back the USwhen it tried to extend an arms embargo on Iran. Pompeo visited the island two days after that vote.Council members who normally consider themselves US allies on most issues said they would have supported Washington if a compromise had been found, in which the arms embargo could have been extended for a limited time period. The defeat of the US resolution on the embargo led directly to Pompeo’s legal gambit to try to snap back UN sanctions.Diplomats at the UN said the depth of US isolation was in part a reflection of the abrasive style used by Pompeo, who accused Europeans of choosing to “side with the ayatollahs”, and the US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, a political appointee.“The Americans were actually being over the top in their ridiculousness,” one diplomat said.“The underlying point here is that most countries on the security council basically agree with the US that Iran is not a nice country and it having nuclear weapons and more arms is not a good thing,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans misplayed their hand so often, so aggressively, that they isolated themselves from people not on policy, but on just being unpleasant.” More