Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photo: wiki commons.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he plans to retire from politics at the end of his second term next year, according to an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung published Saturday.

Ahmadinejad told the German newspaper that he intends to return to academia. He said that although he might engage in political activity at a university, “I will not found any political party or group.”

Forbidden from running in Iran’s June 2013 elections because of term limits, Ahmadinejad could still run in later elections. When asked whether, like Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, he envisions returning to the presidency at a later date, he replied, “No, eight years are enough.”