Officials in Israel and the United States claim Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Qalibaf is participating in constructive talks with the U.S., but he says negotiations haven’t even begun.
An unnamed source told Israeli outlet the Jerusalem Post on Monday that Qalibaf has been leading discussions between the Trump administration and Tehran. Separately, an unidentified Israeli official told Axios that U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are in contact with Qalibaf.
Qalibaf, in his statements issued via social media, has been unambiguous in declaring that those reports are entirely false.
“No negotiations have been held with the U.S.,” the parliament speaker wrote on Monday.
Qalibaf dismissed reports of any negotiations between the two countries as “fake news” being used to “manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”
He said the “Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Iranian officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved.”
Three senior Iranian sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Qalibaf could be the nation’s representative in hypothetical negotiations, but that only preliminary communications have occurred via intermediaries in Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be expected to join him in such a meeting, which has not been agreed upon.
The speaker is considered a religious and social conservative within Iranian politics. He previously served as the mayor of Tehran and has put himself forward for the Iranian presidency at least four times since 2005.
He has consistently declared total loyalty to Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, emphasizing that his passion for serving the current supreme leader is no different than for his late father who was killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes in the early days of Operation Epic Fury.
Despite his stated ideology, Trump administration officials reportedly told Politico that he is a “hot option” for leading a post-war Iran.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the multiple Iranian opposition groups that have fought the Islamic regime for decades, said viewing Qalibaf as a viable counterpart for peace “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian regime.”
“Qalibaf is a longtime [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] insider and a key part of the very belligerent and repressive system that has ruled Iran for decades,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of NCRI’s U.S. office, told the Washington Examiner. “Rebranding its insiders as ‘moderates’ has been tried before and has consistently failed.”
Trump has not acknowledged Qalibaf by name in his statements claiming major breakthroughs in diplomacy between Washington and Tehran.
TRUMP SAYS VANCE AND RUBIO ARE ‘INVOLVED’ IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN
“They’re talking to us, and they’re talking sense,” Trump said on Tuesday, explaining that he has adopted a less belligerent posture “based on the fact we’re negotiating.”
The president also said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are involved in the process.
“We’re in negotiations right now. They’re doing it, along with Marco and JD; we have a number of people doing it,” the president told reporters. “The other side, I can tell you, they’d like to make a deal. And who wouldn’t if you were them?”