TEHRAN (Dispatches) - University professor Foad Izadi and political analyst Mostafa Khoshcheshm said that leaked remarks by Iran’s foreign minister, in which he suggested existence of friction between some parts of the Iranian foreign policy development mechanism, run counter to the mechanism’s actual integrated nature.
The leaked audio file featured the top diplomat Muhammad Javad Zarif’s suggesting that Iran’s foreign policy had been "sacrificed” in favor of the activities of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and the preferences of the force’s revered martyred commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.
On Sunday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei rebuked the foreign minister over the latter’s "wrongful” remarks. Ayatollah Khamenei underlined that "a country’s plans include military, scientific, cultural, and diplomatic plans, and their totality makes up a country’s policy.
"In the Islamic Republic, the foreign policy is determined at the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) in the presence of the country’s authorities, and
the Foreign Ministry should implement it using its own methods,” the Leader added.
Ayatollah Khamenei hailed the Quds Force as "the biggest effective factor” that prevented Iran from leading a "passive diplomacy” in the West Asia region. The Leader, therefore, strongly criticized Zarif’s remarks for their resemblance to the comments that were made about the country by its enemies.