Australia will temporarily restrict some Iranian visitor visa holders who are outside the country from traveling to Australia, the home affairs ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry said the move was aimed at protecting the integrity of the country’s immigration system.
Tehran will not engage in negotiations and no agreement will be reached with its adversaries, said an Iranian military spokesman on Wednesday, mocking Washington’s talk of negotiations with Tehran.
The spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned pre-war energy prices would not return unless Washington accepted that regional stability is guaranteed by Iran’s armed forces, further asking: “Has the level of your internal struggle reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?”
Ebrahim Zolfaghari used the remarks to reject the idea that Tehran was moving toward an agreement with Washington, saying: “People like us can never get along with people like you.”
Iranian representatives have told the Trump administration they have a high bar for returning to negotiations on a ceasefire deal, with the IRGC pressing demands including the closure of all US bases in the Persian Gulf and reparations for attacks on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Other demands were said to include a new arrangement for the Strait of Hormuz that would allow Iran to collect transit fees, guarantees that the war would not restart, an end to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, the lifting of all sanctions on Iran, and preserving Iran’s missile program without talks to limit it.
A US official described the demands to the Journal as “ridiculous and unrealistic.” The report said Arab and US officials believed the opening messages in the new diplomatic round were passed through Middle Eastern intermediaries late last week and that Washington and Tehran were not in direct contact.
President Donald Trump is simultaneously preparing diplomatic options and military escalation in the Iran conflict, Axios cited US and Israeli officials on Tuesday.
Officials said the Trump administration is planning for another two to three weeks of war even if talks take place as special envoy Witkoff recommended Vice President JD Vance as a lead negotiator, citing the stature of his office and the perception that Tehran does not see him as a hawk.
A Trump adviser told Axios that the massing of US forces is intended as leverage rather than a sign of bad-faith negotiations.
A foundational figure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr’s rise signals not a shift, but a moment of clarity — the same hardline system, now accelerating and more visible than ever.
The longtime hardliner is the new chief of the Supreme National Security Council to replace his slain predecessor Ali Larijani, state television said Tuesday.
Zolghadr is not a new figure emerging in a moment of crisis, but a product of the Islamic Republic’s original revolutionary security networks. A man whose career spans armed militancy, senior command within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and influential roles across Iran’s political and judicial institutions.
“He is one of the last remnants of the radical revolutionaries that armed themselves against the Pahlavi monarchy,” historian Shahram Kholdi told Iran International.
A former deputy commander of the IRGC, Zolghadr belongs to the generation that helped transform the Guards into the backbone of the Islamic Republic not only as a military force, but as a political and economic power center. Over decades, the IRGC expanded its reach across the state, embedding itself in key institutions from the interior ministry to the judiciary.
Kholdi traces Zolghadr back to the early networks that evolved into the Quds Force — the IRGC’s elite unit responsible for managing Iran’s proxy militias and projecting power across the Middle East placing him alongside the system later commanded by Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s regional strategy.
His appointment following the killing of Larijani underscores what many analysts see as an accelerating trend: the consolidation of power by hardline military figures. What has been a gradual shift over decades appears to have intensified amid the current conflict, with the Guards tightening their grip over both national security and political decision-making.
The Quds Force, the IRGC’s external arm, has been at the center of Iran’s regional power projection, training and directing militias from Iraq to Syria, where it helped sustain Bashar al-Assad’s war in a conflict marked by widespread civilian suffering.
“He is part of the three to four thousand families that have been forming the power core of the Islamic Republic,” Kholdi said.
Zolghadr’s rise does not mark a departure from that system, but a continuation of it, reflecting the enduring dominance of a tightly knit network of insiders drawn from the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary and security institutions.
His role in internal repression also stretches back decades. During the 1999 student protests — a pivotal moment in the regime’s violent suppression of dissent— Zolghadr was among a group of senior IRGC commanders who signed a sharply worded letter to then-reformist President Mohammad Khatami. The message warned that if the government failed to decisively crush the unrest, the Guards would act on their own. The episode is widely seen as a turning point, marking a more overt willingness by the IRGC to intervene directly in politics and, for many Iranians, cementing the reform movement’s ultimate failure.
His political trajectory has long aligned with Iran’s most hardline currents. He played a role in the rise of former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and later acknowledged that conservative factions had carried out coordinated efforts to secure that victory. In office, he adopted a confrontational posture toward the United States, warning that Iran would respond to any attack with overwhelming missile strikes.
During the Iran-Iraq War, he led units he fought in cross-border operations, which is experience that would help shape the regime’s enduring emphasis on asymmetrical warfare.
According to Kholdi, Zolghadr was among those who helped design that doctrine alongside figures like Qassem Soleimani — building a decentralized system capable of operating even under sustained attack.
“They created this asymmetrical hierarchy where units can act independently… and continue operating even if leadership is cut off,” Kholdi said.
That system is now visible in Iran’s military posture, with dispersed missile and drone capabilities across the region.
Kholdi also points to Zolghadr’s deep institutional knowledge as a key factor in his significance today.
“The fact that he hasn’t been eliminated is bad news — he is one of the main people who knows a lot about how this system works,” he said, adding that Zolghadr likely has insight into sensitive areas including the country’s nuclear program.
For ordinary Iranians, his rise is much the same as his predecessor Ali Larijani, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike overnight on March 16 in Tehran.
“No, he is much the same,” Kholdi said when asked whether Zolghadr differs from figures like Larijani.
His appointment underscores a consistent reality: power in the Islamic Republic remains concentrated within a small circle of entrenched insiders — many of whom have been at the center of the system since its earliest days.
Remarks by Donald Trump suggesting backchannel contacts with a figure inside Iran’s government have stirred intense political debate in Tehran.
The controversy intensified after reports by Israel’s Channel 11 and Politico suggested that Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf could be the “pragmatic partner” potentially engaging with the Trump administration.
According to the Politico report, “at least some White House officials see him as someone who could lead Iran and negotiate in a next phase of conflict with the Trump administration.” However, the report added that the White House “is not yet ready to bet on a single figure” and is exploring multiple options.
The mere suggestion that a sitting Iranian parliament speaker could be engaged—formally or informally—with Washington carries significant implications within Iran’s political system, where any perception of independent diplomatic outreach can trigger backlash, particularly during periods of heightened tension.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-linked media outlets have strongly rejected claims of secret negotiations.
Fars News Agency described the reports as a “psychological operation,” asserting that the narrative was designed with three goals: “character assassination of Ghalibaf, incitement toward possible physical targeting, and sowing division in the country.”
Similarly, Tasnim News Agency called the reports a “complex enemy design to create the perception of internal tension,” arguing that it aimed to distract political forces from the ongoing conflict.
Even political figures outside Ghalibaf’s immediate camp have echoed concerns about psychological warfare.
Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi, telecommunications minister under President Hassan Rouhani, wrote on X that Trump’s contradictory statements—and media suggestions that Ghalibaf could be conducting secret talks—are intended to “create division within the government and among military forces.”
Hesameddin Ashena, a former media adviser to Rouhani, also warned of “character assassination,” describing the amplification of such claims as effectively “aligning with the enemy.”
Iranian officials have acknowledged indirect communications with Washington through intermediaries. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and spokesman Esmail Baghaei said countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan have been exchanging messages between the two sides in recent days in an effort to reduce tensions.
At the same time, Iranian officials stressed that Tehran’s core positions remain unchanged.
These include its stance on the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz—a position that has contributed to escalating rhetoric, including reported threats by Trump to target Iran’s energy infrastructure and impose a short deadline.
An Iranian official told Al Jazeera that Washington has so far refused to meet Tehran’s key conditions for negotiations: “payment of war reparations and acknowledgment of aggression against Iranian territory.”
Meanwhile, reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal suggest that potential talks to end the conflict could take place in Pakistan or Turkey, possibly involving figures such as Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Vice President J. D. Vance in the coming days.
Despite official denials, the issue has gained traction on social media—particularly among Iranians abroad, given severe internet restrictions inside Iran since the war began.
Thousands of responses to Ghalibaf’s denial of secret talks with Washington on X framed the issue in terms of suspicion and alleged betrayal.
Some users pointed to his absence from certain recent public events, while others noted that his name had not appeared in US bounty lists targeting Iranian officials, interpreting this as suspicious though without evidence.
Others revived longstanding allegations of financial corruption and nepotism raised by hardline factions such as the Paydari Front and supporters of Saeed Jalili—claims that have circulated in Iran’s political rivalries for years.