Hardline extremists in Iran’s government are trying to jeopardize a ceasefire deal with the US, The Telegraph reported Tuesday.
Additionally, the report noted significant gaps in information regarding the negotiations.
“No one knows what is really happening,” the Telegraph quotes one Iranian official as saying. “Most officials hear only from TV what’s happening. They do not know what we are giving up and what we are actually gaining.”
Because of the secrecy surrounding negotiations, several hardliners from the regime are spewing out worst-case scenarios and have begun to claim that negotiators are surrendering Iran to the US and Israel.
Some extremist members of the Iranian leadership are concerned that Tehran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and his negotiating team are making secret concessions to US negotiators without telling the Islamic Republic’s leadership.
This comes after Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Doha on Monday.
Iranian hardliners are sabotaging negotiations, raising new demands
During the visit, news emerged that Iran is seeking the immediate release of $12 billion in frozen assets held in Qatar as a precondition for continuing the talks with the United States.
While Ghalibaf and Araghchi reportedly made headway in Qatar, several Iranian hardliners are still deeply distrustful of the US.
According to the report, extremists in Iran believe that any form of a deal with the US is an inherent concession and a further betrayal of Iran’s dogged resistance to what they classify as American imperialism.
This also comes after the US Central Command said that American troops struck Iranian missile sites and boats that were trying to drop sea mines in southern Iran as a means of self-defense.
“They say why are we still talking with them while they are bombing us? Recent incidents have made some people here oppose the talks even more,” an Iranian official told the Telegraph.
Notably, a statement of support signed earlier this month for the negotiators received only 261 signatures from Iran’s 290 members of parliament.
Of those 290, seven of the members refused to sign. The report stated that they are all reportedly aligned with Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran.
Some members of parliament have been publicly opposing negotiations.
Iranian MP Amirhossein Sabeti went so far as to say that negotiations would lead to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s “assasination.”
“Didn’t war happen in the middle of negotiations before? So you want to negotiate again so war happens and our new leader gets assassinated too?” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
Additionally, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders are also expressing their discontent with negotiations.
Former IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, who had not made any public statements in months, demanded an end to negotiations until all sanctions were lifted and frozen funds were released. He added that Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz was necessary.
Although little is truly known about negotiations due to their secrecy, statements by Jafari and Jalili show that Iran’s negotiating demands are becoming increasingly untenable.
