With a new US administration that has not made its opposition to the nuclear deal a secret, Iran’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif took aim at those inside Iran who continue to try to sabotage the implementation of the nuclear deal and reveal contents of his confidential testimonies about those talks.

During the hourlong Feb. 11 video interview with Entekhab website, Zarif said the domestic criticism gave the opposing sides in the nuclear talks the wrong impression that Iran’s negotiators did not have the backing of Iran’s so-called hard-line “resistance” groups and that the negotiators were operating against Iran’s national interests. Zarif continued that the disclosures from his closed-door testimonies to parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission were detrimental to the talks and later the implementation, which he described as even more time-consuming than the deal.

One of the most spectacular leaks came in December 2016 from Iranian parliamentarian Javad Karimi-Ghoddousi, who said that Zarif had conceded to the commission that he had “made a mistake” in trusting US Secretary of State John Kerry. Zarif and Kerry held numerous bilateral negotiations during the nuclear talks, and the ability of the two to resolve difficult issues was instrumental in the passing of the nuclear deal.

On whether he actually ever said he “made a mistake,” Zarif said his use of the word “mistake” was in regard to making a statement publicly and not the nuclear negotiations. Zarif said he hoped that his other comments to the commission would remain confidential, not necessarily from the Iranian people but from the opposing sides in the nuclear negotiations.