Defense of Rouhani in Official Foreign Ministry Response to Judiciary

In the ongoing conflict between the executive and judicial branches in Iran, this time the Foreign Ministry has entered the fray on behalf of the government, officially responding to the criticisms of the head of the judiciary by stating that based on "customary decorum," the Foreign Ministry cannot engage with the "fraudulent and underground" actions of Babak Zanjani. The Iranian Foreign Ministry, under Mohammad Javad Zarif, reacted to the head of the judiciary's criticism of the government's performance in identifying Zanjani's assets abroad on Thursday, January 6, stating that "the Foreign Ministry has never been asked to directly" pursue this case and that "no information regarding the content of the case" has been provided to this ministry. According to the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), the Foreign Ministry emphasized in a statement that the judiciary's requests from this ministry regarding this case were only to "facilitate" the travels and meetings of judicial officials with individuals and officials of the relevant countries. Based on this statement, the Foreign Ministry has not left any "request" regarding this case "unanswered and unpursued" and has been "officially and repeatedly praised by the bodies pursuing the aforementioned case." This ministry attributed the ambiguities in the international pursuit of Babak Zanjani's case to the fact that it should have pursued this case "formally and openly" according to its duties and customs, while Zanjani's actions were "not carried out through legal and official channels." The statement emphasized that Babak Zanjani was not only "coordinating with corrupt networks and their leaders" inside the country but also relied solely on opaque communications and financial corruption networks abroad. The Foreign Ministry reminded that "according to global customary practice," pursuing such cases is the responsibility of the Ministry of Intelligence, which, according to Hassan Rouhani's statements, has "not yet been independently allowed to enter this case." Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, on Tuesday, January 3, severely criticized Hassan Rouhani's remarks about Babak Zanjani's case, emphasizing that the pursuit of tracing Zanjani's funds in Malaysia, Tajikistan, and Turkey should be carried out by the Central Bank and the Foreign Ministry and "has nothing to do with the judiciary." These remarks by Sadegh Larijani were a response to Hassan Rouhani's comments on January 1, where he stated that he had requested the judiciary to hand over Babak Zanjani's case to the Ministry of Intelligence, but this request had not been executed. He also mentioned that the public's questions about this case remain unanswered. Previously, officials from the Ministry of Oil and the prosecutor's office announced that efforts to recover Babak Zanjani's assets abroad had yielded no results. In its statement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry also considered the head of the judiciary's "hint" regarding the Vienna nuclear agreement and the "honorable achievements of the Iranian nation" in this agreement as "surprising." The head of the judiciary criticized the Foreign Ministry's performance in Babak Zanjani's case, stating that "apparently, the gentlemen have confined diplomacy to the issue of the JCPOA, which has resulted in this situation." The head of the judiciary's criticism of the Foreign Ministry's performance in Babak Zanjani's case comes at a time when this branch has directly engaged with international bodies through its international deputy and human rights headquarters in recent years. The judiciary has also opposed some of Iran's actions in foreign policy, and on November 5, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of the judiciary's human rights headquarters, announced that the judiciary would not allow the European Union to establish an office in Iran. The Iranian Foreign Ministry's statement comes amid a significant deterioration in relations between the government and the judiciary, with officials from both branches leveling accusations against each other.