The Daily Mail reported Wednesday, April 28, that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (Mohammad Javad Zarif) last March, to an Iranian economist Leylaz (Saeed Leylaz), a breath of several hours, the current Iranian government oral history out of the cage, was leaked on Monday.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh effectively confirmed the authenticity of the leaked tapes. The recording was heavily reprinted on Iranian social media after it came to light, with the Western media watching wide-eyed and Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, being “shot at.
In the recording, Zarif said, “Kerry told me, ‘Israel has attacked you 200 times in Syria’. Zarif complained that the Iranian military had not informed him of such matters.
The interviewer asked Zarif twice, “Don’t you know about this?” Zarif replied both times, ‘No, I don’t know. “
But Zarif did not specify when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made the remark.
The former secretary of state, who tipped off Iran and leaked details of the allied attack, sparked an uproar in U.S. politics, with Republicans demanding that Kerry immediately clarify, resign as climate envoy, resign as a member of the National Security Council and revoke Kerry’s security clearance.
Pompeo, who served as secretary of state in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021, said, speaking to Fox News’ Hannity on Tuesday, “John Kerry needs to explain to the American people why he met with Zarif. We believe he has absolutely told the Iranians to stick it out and not negotiate with the Trump team for one minute. “
Pompeo said Biden’s attempt to renegotiate his old boss Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was a bad idea, a big mistake that put Americans in danger.
U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) wrote to Biden on Tuesday asking that Kerry’s security clearance be revoked, an unconventional measure for the former secretary of state. Biggs argued that “at worst, it borders on treason.”
Republican Sen. Sullivan of Alaska used the word ‘treason’ in a speech on the Senate floor and called for Kerry to resign his climate post.
Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said, ‘I don’t use the word treason very often, and this Kerry military leak was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. “
The White House declined to comment when asked about Zarif’s comments. We are not going to comment on the leaked tapes,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a news conference Monday.
John Kerry was Obama’s second-term secretary of state and led the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Kerry has repeatedly stressed that the original intent of the Iran nuclear deal was to disarm Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons, but the Iran nuclear deal met with sharp skepticism during its review by the U.S. Congress, with many Republicans arguing that the U.S. gained nothing by conceding too much to Iran.
After Trump took office, Kerry and Iranian leaders conspired to undermine President Trump’s administration. Before Trump announced his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the reintroduction of sanctions against Iran, Pompeo claimed that Kerry had appeared at the Munich Security Conference in February 2018 and “met privately” with Zarif to “actively undermine U.S. government policy”; in the first half of 2018 Kerry met twice with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif at UN headquarters.
Trump tweeted at Kerry, who told Zarif that Iran must “survive the Trump administration” and that this is the behavior of “foreign proxies. Trump argued that “the U.S. doesn’t need Kerry’s illegal shadow diplomacy on the very bad Iran nuclear deal, and he’s to blame for this mess! “
After the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2019, Trump accused Kerry of violating federal law by siding with Iran over U.S. interests, and said he should be prosecuted for it.
FoxNews.com said the “leak” came as the Biden administration was in indirect talks with the Iranian government in Vienna to consider returning to the Iran nuclear deal, causing discontent among Republicans. Republicans in the U.S. Congress, urged Biden not to cancel the harsh U.S. sanctions against Iran, proposed a bill against Iran’s “Extreme Pressure Act”, including the “largest package” of sanctions against Iran.
According to Politico, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued that Zarif’s comments in the leaked recording underscore the need for the U.S. not to abandon sanctions against Iran.
Senior Israeli officials, including the Mossad director, will also visit Washington to raise their objections to the Biden administration’s foreign policy on Iran.
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