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

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.

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.

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 conditions for continuing the negotiations, including receiving compensation from the US, maintaining the right to uranium enrichment, lifting sanctions, releasing Iran’s frozen assets and exercising full sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz, including the immediate charging of fees.

According to Nabavian, Khamenei emphasised “Iran’s monopoly on the management of the strait of Hormuz, collecting tolls from passing vessels, restrictions on enemy ships, and allocating the revenues from the tolls to the people, families of martyrs, and veterans.”

The reopening of the waterway should only happen when the US agreed to pay compensation, he ordered. The US has agreed to set up a $350bn (£264bn) development fund, but said it will not contribute.

Nabavian also claimed Khamenei wrote in a message to the negotiating team: “What was agreed upon in the Pakistan talks is completely different from what was supposed to happen and was a condition for the legitimacy of the talks, and the talks must be stopped.” He was referring to the talks in Islamabad in which the negotiating team did discuss aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Later on a Telegram channel, Nabavian continued the argument, saying he has not released secret documents and was only revealing the truth.

He said that, based on the memorandum of understanding, “four issues had to be implemented before negotiations could begin: 1. End of the occupation in Lebanon and complete withdrawal 2. The release of our frozen money by America. Not borrowing from Qatar. 3. Lifting the siege 4. Temporary lifting of sanctions.”

He questioned whether these four preconditions had been met before foreign ministry officials went to Geneva for negotiations, and further asked: “Does that mean that people should not be aware of what the imam’s orders were and why the agents disobeyed them?”