Iran's foreign minister expressed regret Wednesday that a recording leaked out of him making frank comments about the limits of his power in the Islamic Republic, while the country's president describing the incident as a means to derail ongoing talks with world powers over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal.
Posting to his Instagram account, Mohammad Javad Zarif offered his first public comments about the recording, which caused a political firestorm across Iran ahead of the country's June 18 presidential election.
"I am very sorry how a secret, theoretical discussion about the necessity of increasing cooperation between diplomacy and the field (the Guard) - in order for the next officials to use the valuable experiences of the last eight years - became an internal conflict," Zarif wrote.