The divide became unusually public this week as several ultraconservative MPs refused to sign a letter backing Iran’s negotiating team. The dispute then spilled into hardline media, triggering an unprecedented public clash between Raja News and the Revolutionary Guards-linked Tasnim News Agency.
The confrontation largely pits supporters of former nuclear negotiator and National Security Council member Saeed Jalili against allies of his longtime rival, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who recently led Iran’s delegation in talks in Islamabad.
On Monday, Iranian media reported that 27 members of parliament—including seven affiliated with Jalili’s ultraconservative camp—refused to sign a letter backing the negotiating team and Ghalibaf’s leadership in the Islamabad talks.
One of them, Mahmoud Nabavian, who had traveled to Islamabad with the delegation, later claimed that Mojtaba Khamenei’s “red lines” had been violated. He alleged that negotiators had engaged with the United States on nuclear issues against those guidelines.
In recent days, hardline lawmakers and commentators have increasingly criticized the negotiating team.
Jalili himself appeared to escalate tensions when he called on Mojtaba Khamenei to clarify publicly whether ongoing actions reflected his directives. In a now-deleted post, he wrote that if no such message was issued, “there is one hundred percent a ‘sedition of officials,’ and all these statements are written by the coup plotter himself.”
The remark was widely seen as aimed at Ghalibaf.
The feud escalated further after a Tasnim editorial said demanding the United States lift all sanctions or agree to a comprehensive ceasefire with Iran’s armed allies in the region amounted to unrealistic expectations like a “magic beanstalk.”
The article also argued that negotiations with the United States should not be seen as a final solution and that “the power of the people in the streets” could serve as Iran’s main leverage.
Raja News published a harsh response.
Tasnim later removed the article, saying it had republished it from another outlet, but responded in an unusually sharp tone, accusing Raja of inciting division and acting against national security.
It said the outlet was “seeking to complete Trump’s project in Iran” and noted that some individuals had recently been arrested over “suspicious movements to undermine sacred unity.”
A Telegram post by Saberin News, a channel linked to security institutions, went further, labeling the Paydari Party as the Kharijites—a historical term for extremist dissenters who opposed and ultimately assassinated Imam Ali, the first Shia imam.
The post accused them of “sowing division on the battlefield” and “playing in favor of Israel and the United States.”
Iran’s state broadcaster (IRIB) has also come under scrutiny for alleged bias. Its deputy for cultural affairs, Vahid Jalili, is Saeed Jalili’s brother.
Moderate outlet Khabar Online reported that by its count, 8 out of 10 of pundits appearing on IRIB during the recent conflict have been conservatives, with 15 percent linked to the ultraconservative Paydari Front.
“The problem is not just the elimination of reformists; the data shows that even moderate conservatives or critical insiders have almost no presence in these programs,” the outlet wrote.
Raja News later said it would avoid prolonging the dispute in public and would instead pursue legal action. But as the stakes rise—whether through renewed talks with Washington or a return to war—it may prove difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.
