Iranian FM on Soleimani, Lavrov in leaked tape

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticised former Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani's involvement in the country's foreign policy, a leaked audio tape has revealed.

“I have sacrificed diplomacy for the battlefield more than the price that (those on) the battlefield (led by Soleimani) ... paid and sacrificed for diplomacy,” Zarif said.

Zarif added that Soleimani used to give him a "list of items for (Russian Foreign Minister) Lavrov when I went for talks with him."

A U.S. drone strike in 2020 killed Soleimani in Baghdad, an attack that at the time brought the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war.

Officials in Tehran did not dispute the authenticity of the recording, but said it was a selective leak from a seven-hour interview that Zarif had given to an Iranian think-tank for historical purposes.

In the recording, Zarif gave a blunt appraisal of diplomacy and the limits of power within the Islamic Republic, providing a rare look inside the country's theocracy.

The release of the comments by set off a firestorm within Iran, where officials carefully mind their words amid a cut-throat political environment that includes the powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, ultimately overseen by the country's supreme leader.