President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday replaced the head of the
state-run think-tank that was in charge of conducting the interview. Authorities have said the recording was part of a wider project with government officials and was produced for state records rather than for publication.
If Zarif wanted to run for presidency he could. No where does Zarif talk as if he wants to run for presidency. The interviewer kept trying to bait him as
@PeeD said. As some point even Zarif started feeling uneasy from the line of questioning and had to reiterate to the interviewer this was not for public consumption.
It appears whatever conspiracy is here, the interviewer was directly involved and was likely ordered by someone to conduct such line of questioning.
I do ageee with you on the notion It seems the interview was going to get leaked regardless based on line of questioning. It didn’t leak because Zarif said something “so off the record” that it became tabloid like to leak.
Either way the chances Zarif was running for presidency prior to this was near 0% and after this def 0%.