Secret correspondence claims suggest tensions at top of Iranian government

The IRIB interview with Mahmoud Nabavian, the deputy chair of Iran’s national security council, was eventually cut off. Photograph: X View image in fullscreen The IRIB interview with Mahmoud Nabavian, the deputy chair of Iran’s national security council, was eventually cut off. Photograph: X Secret correspondence claims suggest tensions at top of Iranian government Former negotiating team member gives shock interview claiming supreme leader’s instructions were not followed Middle East crisis – live updates A former member of Iran’s negotiating team in the previous round of talks in Islamabad is facing the threat of prosecution and dismissal from parliament after he went on the main state broadcaster to reveal what he claimed were confidential letters from the country’s supreme leader. The interview with Mahmoud Nabavian, the deputy chair of Iran’s national security council, was eventually cut off, but only after he said he had seen secret correspondence written by Mojtaba Khamenei in which the ayatollah allegedly said Iran’s negotiating team had overstepped its mandate An hour after the censored broadcast, the archive of the interview was removed and a senior official at the broadcaster resigned. His claims were dismissed by a spokesperson for the negotiating team as old and distorted. The state broadcaster said Nabavian’s statements were “evidence of a legal violation and worthy of legal prosecution”. Members of the camp of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the chief negotiator at the current talks in Switzerland , called for the leaker to be identified. Centrists and reformists have long argued the state broadcaster IRIB acts as an agent for hardliners in the Paydari or Stability Front, of which Nabavian is a supporter. View image in fullscreen The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (centre), and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, en route to Zurich, Switzerland on Saturday. Photograph: Hamed Malekpour/Reuters The episode, apart from revealing tensions at the top of government in near real time, also appear to show that the newly-appointed supreme leader has been taking a much more hands-on approach to the talks than previously known, and has also been ordering the negotiators not to relent on the nuclear file or the immediate payment of tolls to Iran by ships in the strait of Hormuz. Khamenei has not been seen in public, or issued an audio tape, operating through written statements. Some reports suggest the negotiating team once had to wait a fortnight before securing his guidance on how the talks should proceed, and that he would send detailed questions to the negotiators. 1:07 JD Vance meets Pakistan delegation before Iran talks in Switzerland – video In a letter to Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, that Khamenei published on Thursday, he said he took a different view on the outcome of the talks to the president, but had deferred to his judgment on certain conditions. Nabavian claimed the supreme leader had in fact set 11