Senior Revolutionary Guards officials have prevented Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi from traveling to Doha for a meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Israel Hayom has learned.
Key points
- Senior Revolutionary Guards officials prevented Araghchi from attending talks in Doha with the US envoys, and his own envoy was also barred from meeting them directly.
- Iran is demanding long-term control over tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a demand the US rejects, leaving formal negotiations stalled.
- Trump is facing criticism from senior officials in his administration over the failure to implement the memorandum of understanding, while Iran continues to rake in oil revenues.
- Behind the scenes, an internal power struggle is underway between Araghchi and the Revolutionary Guards, who, according to sources, are trying to torpedo the negotiations.
Araghchi sent his deputy, Kazem Gharibabadi, in his place, but he too was barred from meeting directly with the Americans. According to diplomatic sources familiar with the contacts, over the weekend, as Revolutionary Guards forces attacked tankers crossing Hormuz through the Omani route, the Americans warned Iran that they would resume high-intensity strikes. The sources' remarks align with a Wall Street Journal report that President Trump had considered returning to the fighting.
The diplomatic officials shed light on the contacts in recent days, saying the Iranians demanded, contrary to the memorandum of understanding, full control over tanker passage and the establishment of a mechanism that would leave control of the critical waterway in their hands in the long term as part of a future agreement. The Americans refused and demanded implementation of the memorandum, meaning full opening of the route.
Trying to torpedo the negotiations
Araghchi, in a conversation published in Israel Hayom, warned that the Revolutionary Guards were seeking to torpedo the negotiations and asked the Americans to avoid a high-intensity strike that would bring the war back. He added that the Guards could renew attacks on the Gulf states on a large scale, and perhaps even on Israel. He linked the Guards' conduct to the framework agreement signed Friday between Israel and Lebanon with US mediation and involvement.
The US team, led by Vice President JD Vance, coordinated with Araghchi and, with Qatari assistance, arranged a rapid meeting in Doha, receiving the president's approval. Trump announced it himself, saying the Iranians had requested the meeting. But negative signals began coming from Iran.
Reports in Iranian media repeatedly claimed that no meeting was expected, leading Vance to try to explain in an interview that these were merely internal publications meant for supporters of the regime in Iran. "A Persian negotiation tactic and a Persian rhetorical ploy, which I don't understand, as they have also used throughout the negotiations so far," Vance was quoted as saying, effectively admitting he did not understand the Iranian tactic.
Then came official statements from Iran's Foreign Ministry, whose spokesman explicitly said that negotiations were not resuming and that there would be no meetings with the US. This was followed by remarks from the man described as Iran's "moderate hope," Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who said Tuesday in an interview with Iranian television that Iran would not move ahead with implementing the remaining parts of the memorandum of understanding with the US as long as its first five clauses were not fulfilled, including an end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon.
"Until the first five clauses are fulfilled, we will not enter into the remaining clauses," he said, stressing that Tehran insisted on recognition of its "rights in the Strait of Hormuz." In other words, this is an Iranian condition that the US certainly cannot meet, meaning the official negotiations have been halted while the US envoys have already been waiting in Doha for two days. Ghalibaf added that the memorandum of understanding contradicted the Israel-Lebanon framework agreement and accused the US administration of speaking in two voices and being split in its policy.
Throughout Tuesday, many conversations were held among the envoys in Qatar, Vance in the US, Araghchi in Tehran, and the mediators Qatar and Pakistan. Araghchi then announced that he would not be able to come. According to the sources, he explained that the situation did not allow it, but in practice, the Guards had barred him from leaving for the direct talks. One official claimed they used the name of the missing supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the person who gave the instruction.
Meanwhile in Doha
The US envoys in Doha, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have so far met only with the Qatari prime minister, but they managed to secure agreement for talks between technical teams on the nuclear issue and the issue of passage through Hormuz. Those talks took place Wednesday with Qatari mediation, and not directly. But that did not stop President Trump from declaring during the first flight on the plane he received as a gift from Qatar: "There were very good talks. The dismantling of Iran's nuclear weapons is going well."
Trump is hearing growing criticism, mainly from officials at the War and State Departments, over the failure to implement the memorandum of understanding and over Iran's exploitation of the sanctions relief and the opening of the naval blockade to sell oil and oil products on a scale that is bringing billions of dollars into the Revolutionary Guards' coffers. As of now, the pace stands at more than half a billion dollars a day. In addition, Iran is expected to receive at least $3 billion from its frozen accounts in the coming days. But despite the principle that was set, under which the money would be used only for civilian purchases, no effective oversight mechanism has yet been established.
Nevertheless, at Trump's instruction, the US Navy continues to escort oil tankers and cargo ships passing through Hormuz despite continued Iranian attacks, and in most cases succeeds in preventing damage to civilian vessels.
Araghchi, meanwhile, is fighting a rear-guard internal battle against the Guards' leadership, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has come to his aid, saying the memorandum of understanding with the US was reached in full coordination with Khamenei, the supreme leader, and with the support of the Supreme National Security Council.
