Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared before the Iranian parliament Oct. 2 to address questions about Iran’s diplomatic approach in the aftermath of the nuclear deal. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed with six world powers led to the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions in return for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.

Javad Karimi Ghodoosi, a member of parliament from the Principlist faction who has been an outspoken critic of Iran’s current government, posed questions that triggered an outburst by Zarif. Ghodoosi, a representative from the conservative city of Mashhad, raised three issues in the National Security Commission’s report:

• What he saw as discrepancies in the Foreign Ministry’s quarterly JCPOA report.
• Replacing Iran’s deputy for Arab and African affairs amid “the critical conditions in the region.”
• Why the foreign minister "disagrees with the exhibition on the Holocaust myth," referring to a May cartoon contest in which some of the entries suggested that parts of the Holocaust are myths. The Iranian government has distanced itself from the contest, calling the organizers "nongovernmental."

Enraged by the insinuations, Zarif accused Ghodoosi of pursuing his own “short-term agenda at the expense of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary image.”

In his answer to whether Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the former deputy for Arab and African Affairs, was replaced to soothe the “unease of certain foreign powers,” Zarif furiously stated, “This is not an insult to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but an insult to the [political] establishment to claim that our officials are replaced due to foreign concerns.”