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As the clerical leadership has long insisted that “negotiation with the Great Satan” is dishonorable and strategically suicidal, high-ranking officials are now scrambling to rationalize Khamenei’s decision to authorize the April 12 talks. The result: a visible fracture between hardline loyalists who seek to distance themselves from a potential diplomatic failure, and officials tasked with defending the regime’s embarrassing U-turn.
“This Saturday was a bad day. Still is,” wrote MP Mehdi Kuchakzadeh on his Telegram channel. “Today, the shameless ones sacrificed honor—and sacrificed the people too. The whole week will be grey.” In the parliament session that followed, he revealed: “Parliament has no information about these negotiations. Even [MP Hasan] Ghashghavi told me, ‘I’m on the nuclear committee and still know nothing.’”
Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf quickly intervened, claiming, “Parliament has certainly been informed… No action has been taken outside legal frameworks.” But the damage was done. Kuchakzadeh’s words had confirmed what many already suspected: the regime is operating in a black box, and even its own aligned legislators are being kept in the dark.
#Iranian Regime Officials Undermine Khamenei’s Authority as Discord Grows Over U.S. #Nuclear Talkshttps://t.co/QU5xbCtUO6
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 12, 2025
Abbas Araghchi, the regime’s Foreign Minister and a veteran nuclear negotiator, tried to calm the waters. “We had about two and a half hours of indirect talks,” he told state TV. “The session was constructive and held in a respectful environment.” He described the negotiations as part of a process, with a second round planned for next Saturday. “No party wants fruitless, time-wasting talks,” he added.
But not all officials were willing to defend the regime’s pivot. MP Amir-Hossein Sabeti, in a statement laced with sarcasm, said: “We don’t care what happened after the Leader declared that negotiations with the U.S. are neither honorable nor wise. Suddenly, the whole idea [of talks] was resurrected. Maybe one day it will be exposed who authorized it.” Sabeti warned that unless the banking and oil sanctions are lifted, any agreement would merely “deepen our economic dependency” and “bring even harsher sanctions.”
The regime’s playbook is all too familiar. Khamenei authorizes negotiations in secret, while trusted lieutenants publicly attack the process — preparing the political ground to blame negotiators if talks fail. It’s the same tactic used in 2018, when then-President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif were left politically exposed after Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA.
#Iran's Clerical Regime Rattled by Internal Splits and Nuclear Escalation Threatshttps://t.co/Mr5tVUjNNu
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 10, 2025
Now, as history repeats itself under Massoud Pezeshkian’s administration, regime clerics are once again preparing their exit ramps.
In Qom, protesters held signs that read: “Whoever calls for negotiation—Farah’s swimming pool awaits him,” a reference to the suspicious death of former President Rafsanjani and a thinly veiled threat against those seen as betraying the regime’s ideological red lines.
Former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki attempted to justify the reversal by portraying the talks as an opportunity to “test the seriousness of the Americans.” Still, he conceded: “The first strategy of the U.S. is regime change. The second is behavioral transformation. They’ve never had the will to solve the problem.”
Even state media like Kayhan offered thinly disguised warnings. “The path to agreement with Trump is unclear,” the column read. “Don’t freeze the country again. The last time, under Rouhani, we tied every sector to diplomacy and got nothing but ruin.”
Internal Defections Cripple #Iran’s Regime Ahead of High-Stakes U.S. Negotiationshttps://t.co/2ltDtsBU1P
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 8, 2025
Despite the escalating pushback, some officials are still clinging to the narrative of strength. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei insisted that the talks are “based on national interests” and accused foreign media of “fabrication.” But in the same breath, he admitted the regime is not optimistic about the outcome: “This is only a beginning. We don’t expect this round of negotiations to be long.”
Meanwhile, the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has opted for silence on the actual content of the talks. Instead, he staged a public meeting with the heads of regime’s armed forces on April 13, praising the country’s “progress” and insisting that “even our enemies express admiration.” He called for “maximum readiness” among Iran’s military ranks, declaring: “What makes the enemy hostile is not the name of the Islamic Republic, but our independent resolve.”
But the contradiction is glaring. In February 2025, Khamenei stated that negotiating with the United States is “unwise, unintelligent, and dishonorable,” asserting that there should be no negotiations with such a government.
Khamenei Rejects Talks—But His Advisors Say Otherwise. Why?https://t.co/3qvPRGr2Pw
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 28, 2025
As Friday prayer leader Amir Mohammadipour of Kermanshah bluntly put it: “The Islamic Republic has not changed its stance. We still do not negotiate with those who break their promises. What’s happening in Oman is indirect—and we’ve done this before.”
Still, behind closed doors, the regime appears far more desperate than it lets on. MP Abolfazl Zohrevand, a former diplomat and current member of the national security committee, dropped the mask: “If the Americans bring something worth hearing, we will listen. Even welcoming [U.S. envoy] Steve Witkoff to Tehran would not be off the table.”
Such remarks would have been unthinkable even months ago.
The regime is now caught in a bind of its own making—unable to sustain its rejectionist mythology and equally unable to fully embrace diplomacy without alienating its radical base. As tensions rise and the economic crisis deepens, Iran’s rulers are playing both sides of a dangerous game—negotiating abroad, while fueling rage at home to keep their fractured coalition intact.