Times of Israel, on Iran, 25 October 2026

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Iran says messages are still being passed to the US amid war ...

No framing issues found.

As concerns rise about a return to an all-out US-Iran war ahead of elections in the United States and Israel, Iran says messages are still being passed to the US and that Tehran remains open to diplomacy.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, says Tehran has not closed the window of diplomacy, and messages are being passed to the US via intermediaries. Negotiations over the war have appeared to stall for weeks.

State media says Baghaei spoke in an interview with a German broadcaster. He said the US appears to persist in making unilateral demands and that Trump and US officials repeatedly use the phrase “complete surrender,” which Baghaei said no Iranian accepts.

Concerns are rising among Iranians about a possible return to all-out war as Israel and the US face elections in the coming days. Israel’s election is on Tuesday and US midterm elections are a week later.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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About this analysis

The Times of Israel reports, in a short liveblog entry, that Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei says Tehran remains open to diplomacy and is passing messages to the US through intermediaries. The entry attributes each claim to Baghaei or to state media and sets out the Iranian position in his own terms. Nothing in it misleads the reader.

What it gets right

  • “Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, says Tehran has not closed the window of diplomacy, and messages are being passed to the US via intermediaries.”

    The outlet names the Iranian official and his post and reports his account as his, with no doubting qualifier attached.

  • “Trump and US officials repeatedly use the phrase “complete surrender,” which Baghaei said no Iranian accepts”

    The outlet gives the Iranian side's objection to US demands in his words, so the reader hears Iran's stated reason for the stalled talks and not only a US characterisation of them.

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