Iranian MPS to probe into leaked audio of FM’S interview: Lawmaker

Iranian lawmakers are to launch an investigation into the leaked recording of a confidential March interview of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that provoked controversy in recent days, an MP said.

Ahmad Amirabadi, a member of the Parliament’s Presiding Board said that lawmakers discussed the recent developments over the audio at a session behind closed doors on Sunday, Tasnim News Agency reported.

“The leakage of the audio file has hurt the feelings of people and upset the nation,” the MP said.

President Hassan Rouhani said Zarif’s leaked audio recording was released by a dirty Saudi-sponsored channel with the purpose of upsetting Iran’s domestic unity at the peak of success in the course of the ongoing talks between Tehran and the remaining signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in Vienna.

Amirabadi added that the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee is going to handle the probe.

His comments came after Zarif cited occasional differences between those in charge of the country’s diplomatic processes and measures taken in the field, according to the news agency.

Rouhani lauded top Iranian anti-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, saying he was “the best adviser” for the administration in the field of foreign policy in the region, and that the revered commander managed to foil plots hatched by the Zionist regime and the US in the region.

The leaked interview, first published by Saudi-sponsored TV channel Iran International, includes more than three hours of audio from Zarif’s interview in March with an Iranian journalist and economist.

Iranian officials said the interview was part of an oral history project compiled by the Presidential Office’s Center for Strategic Studies and it was not recorded for public use.

Lieutenant General Soleimani was assassinated in a US airstrike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020.