Surprise US talks with Iran’s fractured leadership offer uncertain path out of conflict

The backchannel talks between Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, were not a secret in the sense that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had tweeted that conversations were under way on Sunday, 24 hours before Donald Trump’s late Monday deadline to start blowing up Iran’s energy infrastructure.

“The backchannel talks between Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, were not a secret in the sense that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had tweeted that conversations were under way on Sunday, 24 hours before Donald Trump’s late Monday deadline to start blowing up Iran’s energy infrastructure”

The Guardian

But such is the chaos surrounding the process that the discussions – thought to be well short of negotiations – may have lasted longer than Sunday, with more than one mediator, as is often the case, jostling for the title of peacemaker in chief.

The Guardian

Trump insists it was the Iranians who requested to talk, and their minds had been concentrated by Trump’s threat of destroying a $10bn power plant.

Tehran initially denied any talks had happened either directly or indirectly, saying: "There is no negotiation whatsoever between Tehran and Washington. The statements of the president of the United States are within the framework of an attempt to lower energy prices and buy time for the implementation of his military plans."

The Guardian

Iran’s lines of political authority have been in a state of chaos due to damage wreaked by the Israeli assassination campaign.

“The backchannel talks between Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, were not a secret in the sense that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had tweeted that conversations were under way on Sunday, 24 hours before Donald Trump’s late Monday deadline to start blowing up Iran’s energy infrastructure”

The Guardian

Among the survivors, Pezeshkian has his strengths as a unifying figure of integrity, but is out of his depth in nuclear talks, and not fully trusted by the military.

Ali Larijani, the former secretary of the supreme national security council and Iran’s political glue in the past 12 months, had just been buried.

The new supreme leader was possibly in a coma, and definitely invisible.

That largely left in terms of politics Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the parliament, and a staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

One of its key elements, he said was that the strait of Hormuz may be jointly controlled by “me and the Ayatollah. Whoever the Ayatollah is”.

Other elements included no nuclear bombs, no nuclear weapons “not even close”, no nuclear dust, by which he meant the stockpile of highly enriched uranium, “low key on the missiles”, peace in the Middle East, by which he meant talks between Iran and its furious Gulf neighbours, and finally “no enrichment”.

The Guardian

Most of these proposals had already been agreed in the talks held in Geneva or on their sidelines.