Doubts deepen over Khamenei’s role in Tehran’s US talks
A source close to the Tehran-Washington negotiations told Iran International there are doubts over whether Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team are fully coordinated with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
The source said there were serious ambiguities over how much Khamenei knows about the talks and the extent of the negotiating team’s understanding with the Trump administration.
Ghalibaf and Araghchi’s recent trip to Qatar, coupled with the negotiating team’s reluctance to go to Pakistan or continue talks in Tehran, has deepened questions over who is coordinating the process inside the Islamic Republic, Information received by Iran International indicates
Hillel Newman said Israel supported talks between Iran and the United States, but only if they removed what he described as existential threats from the Islamic Republic.
“We’re in favor... of talks as long as they attain the objectives. We cannot compromise on the objectives,” Newman said.
“As I said, the objectives are removal of the nuclear capability, zero enrichment, zero enriched uranium in Iran,” he added. “Also the fact of the ballistic missiles and stopping their support of the proxies which cause unrest in the entire Middle East.”
Newman said Israel was prepared to accept a diplomatic outcome if it achieved those aims.
“If we can attain it through negotiations and diplomatic discussions, fine. If not, we might have to go back to the military campaign in order to attain the objectives, but the objectives must be attained,” he said.
The remarks come as US-Iran talks continue over a possible agreement to end the conflict, with Tehran and Washington still divided over Iran’s highly enriched uranium, sanctions relief, frozen assets and the Strait of Hormuz.
Asked whether Israel would act independently if negotiations produced a ceasefire, Newman said Israel was already giving diplomacy a chance.
“We’re actually now in a kind of a ceasefire which we have declared and accepted because we’re giving a good opportunity in good faith for the discussions, for the diplomatic resolution of the issue,” he said.
Newman said Israel had confidence in US President Donald Trump and described coordination between Washington and Israel as “unprecedented.”
“We have trust, we have confidence in President Trump. We work together closely. There’s coordination,” he said.
He also said any agreement affecting Lebanon would depend on conditions, including whether Iran-backed Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani River.
“We just have to make sure that the Hezbollah terrorists are not launching rockets against Israel and as much as possible not armed and present in the southern part of Lebanon beyond the south of the Litani River,” Newman said. “That’s all we want. We don’t want any territorial aspirations in Lebanon.”
‘Weakening IRGC could open path for Iranians’
Newman said Israel distinguished between the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people, adding that weakening the IRGC, Basij and the ruling establishment could create “a new opportunity” for Iranians.
“In the end, the people of Iran must take their destiny into their own hands,” he said. “By weakening the Basij forces and by weakening the IRGC, by weakening the regime itself, we are opening perhaps a new opportunity for the people of Iran.”
During the Iran war, Israel targeted not only senior commanders and strategic military sites but also checkpoints and street-level security units.
Derakhshani-Mehr, a law student at Islamic Azad University, was shot dead during protests on January 9, a source familiar with the case said.
He was struck by a live bullet in the side and had also suffered metal pellet wounds to the left side of his body before the fatal shooting, the source said.
After he was transferred to Ganjavian hospital, his body was left alongside those of several other young protesters in the hospital grounds, according to witnesses and hospital staff cited by the source.
Witnesses said wounded protesters were denied treatment and that several people died because they did not receive medical care. Blood covered parts of the hospital grounds because of the severity of the injuries, they added.
Family searched hospitals and morgues
Derakhshani-Mehr’s family spent hours searching for him and went to the hospital, where officials initially denied he was there despite the family checking different wards.
Emergency personnel later told the family his body was being held in the hospital morgue, but security forces sealed the facility and prevented relatives from seeing him, the source added.
Family members were also given conflicting information by different authorities and were at one point told that he was still alive.
His body was eventually identified at the forensic medicine office in Ahvaz after being transferred there as an unidentified person, according to the account received by Iran International.
Before handing over the body, authorities forced the family to agree that the burial would take place at night and attended only by a small number of people. Derakhshani-Mehr was buried in Shahidabad cemetery in Dezful.
Night burials reported in earlier crackdowns
Security forces in Iran have previously buried slain protesters at night or without notifying their families.
In one case previously reported by Iran International, a 16-year-old boy named Reza who was killed during protests in Karaj was secretly buried by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps without his family’s knowledge.
Witnesses said Reza was shot by a sniper around 9 p.m. on January 8 in the Shahin Vila neighborhood of Karaj. He later died after being moved to a residential parking area and then taken to a clinic.
People familiar with the case said the teenager’s family was informed the following day that members of the Revolutionary Guards had buried him overnight and disclosed the location of the grave afterward.
Iranian negotiators are demanding the immediate release of $12 billion in frozen assets held in Qatar as a precondition for advancing talks with the United States, an informed source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told Iran International.
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