Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif submits resignation

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stepped down on Monday, announcing his resignation on Instagram.

"I am apologizing to you for all the shortcomings ... in the past years during my time as foreign minister ... I thank the Iranian nation and officials," he wrote on his Instagram page.

Zarif played a prominent role in negotiating the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and major international powers.

But the future of the deal has been put into doubt after US President Donald Trump ended US involvement.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency confirmed the resignation, citing Abbas Mousavi, a government spokesman. There was no immediate reason offered for what prompted Zarif's resignation.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency said "some sources have confirmed Zarif's resignation," but it was not clear whether President Hassan Rohani would accept it.

On Sunday, Zarif criticized Iranian hard-liners in a speech in Tehran, saying: "We cannot hide behind imperialism's plot and blame them for our own incapability."

"Independence does not mean isolation from the world," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a post on Twitter, dismissed Zarif and Rohani as "frontmen for a corrupt religious mafia."

"Our policy is unchanged - the regime must behave like a normal country and respect its people", Pompeo said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Tuesday morning on Twitter to the news of Zarif's resignation, writing in Hebrew: "Zarif is gone, good riddance. As long as I am here, Iran

won't have nuclear weapons."

Earlier on Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad made an unannounced trip to Iran, where he met with the supreme leader and other top officials to discuss the planned U.S. troop withdrawal and Turkey's efforts to set up a buffer zone in northern Syria.

The 59-year-old, Zarif was educated in the US and holds a PhD in international law from the University of Denver.

He has served as Iran's ambassador to the UN and became foreign minister in 2013 after President Hassan Rouhani was elected promising a more moderate, outward-looking Iran.