Overview
- President Donald Trump said Monday the United States is holding very intense talks with an unnamed Iranian figure to end the war and refused to identify the person, saying he does not want them to be killed.
- Press reports have highlighted parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf as the likely go-between, while Qalibaf posted on X that no talks have occurred and accused Washington of pushing fake news to move oil and financial markets.
- Qalibaf is a former Revolutionary Guard commander, ex–police chief, and former Tehran mayor with a record of backing crackdowns and facing corruption claims, yet some diplomats view him as a hardline pragmatist and he is not on U.S. sanctions lists.
- Iran’s leadership is in flux after reports that Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike and Mojtaba Khamenei was named as the new supreme leader, and analysts say any deal would still need approval from the Revolutionary Guard and the supreme leadership.
- IRGC-aligned Tasnim dismissed the Qalibaf reports as an effort to stir division, and experts caution that a quick truce could fall apart within months, so negotiators would need terms that Iran’s security institutions will actually enforce.