On 14 October 2010, Zijlstra was appointed as State secretary for Education, Culture and Science in the newly installed First Rutte cabinet. In this position, he was responsible for a broad portfolio of policy areas within the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, including higher education, science and knowledge, the training and labour conditions of teachers, culture and cultural heritage. In his two-year term, Zijlstra initiated several changes in higher education policy, including the introduction of scholarships more favourable for long-term students and the creation of the possibility to prolong one's study in exceptional cases in 2011, and placing base scholarships for Master students under the loan system in 2012. Additionally, Zijlstra initiated budget cuts in the culture sector, sharpening the conditions necessary to be eligible for government subsidies, and merging several cultural funds. These measures saved a total of 200 million euros.
Parliamentary leader
After Rutte's first cabinet lost a motion of no confidence in 2012 and new elections were held, Zijlstra returned to the House of Representatives as chairman of his party's parliamentary group. In 2016, he announced he would not be available for a second term as parliamentary leader after the 2017 general election, but that he aspired to enter the cabinet as a minister.
Minister of Foreign Affairs
On 26 October 2017, Zijlstra became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the third government of Prime MinisterMark Rutte. In response to the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds from the enclave of Afrin, Zijlstra said that Turkey had the right to defend itself and its border, but at the same time pleaded with Turkey to show restraint. In February 2018 he admitted that he lied about meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2006, during his earlier career. While speaking at a VVD conference in 2016, Zijlstra said that he heard Putin speaking about 'Great Russia' in 2006, suggesting imperialistic ambitions. He said to a newspaper that he visited Putin in his home in 2006. Putin spoke about 'Great Russia', and when asked what he meant with that term, he responded: "Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States. And oh yes, Kazakhstan was 'nice to have'," Zijlstra said. In 2018 he corrected that statement that a source had told him about these alleged statements. "The geopolitical meaning of those words was and is great. I therefore thought it was politically important to make these statements public. The source that told me about Putin's quotation confirmed the events to the Volkskrant, and appreciates the fact that I guarantee anonymity." Former ShellCEOJeroen van der Veer, who attended several talks with Putin, is the source of the story. Van der Veer told the events to Zijlstra in 2014 but clarified in an e-mail to de Volkskrant that Putin's 2006 remarks were "meant historically" and "not by himself" interpreted in the sense of "aggression". On 13 February 2018, Zijlstra announced his resignation as Minister of Foreign Affairs in an address to the House of Representatives.
Political positions
In 2015, Zijlstra authored an op-ed for the NRC Handelsblad daily in which he criticized the Iran nuclear deal framework as "a historical error," a view that echoed Israel’s. Following the United Kingdom's referendum on European Union membership referendum in 2016, Zijlstra noted that Britain was the biggest country in a free-market, antifederalist camp that also includes the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. He commented: "If the British leave, we’ll have lost an important partner and protectionist spirits will get a louder voice."
