Top Iranian diplomat’s interview leaked to derail Vienna talks, Rouhani says

World April 28, 2021, 11:17

On Tuesday, Rouhani ordered the country’s intelligence services to find those who leaked the audio file in question to the media

TEHRAN, April 28. /TASS/. The leak of the interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the media has been organized to derail the negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program in Vienna, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday.

"This tape was released right when [the negotiations] are nearing completion, with the aim of undermining internal unity," he said. The president’s speech was broadcast by Iran’s state television. Rouhani added that "the Ministry of Information (intelligence agency - TASS) was responsible for investigating the theft of the file, and that must be dealt with in the most decisive way."

On Tuesday, Rouhani ordered the country’s intelligence services to find the organizers who leaked the audio file in question to the media.

On April 25, some Western media outlets released parts of Zarif’s unpublished interview, which he had reportedly granted in March. In addition to the text version, an audio file, in which the voice of Iran’s chief diplomat was heard, was uploaded. In the interview, Zarif discussed the visit by commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (elite units of the Iranian armed forces) Qassem Soleimani to Moscow in 2015, the fate of the nuclear deal and its participants’ attitude towards it, the conflict in Syria and Russia’s role in it, as well as relations with Moscow and Washington.

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