The Iran war’s diplomatic track just experienced its most consequential internal rupture yet. The man who sat across from JD Vance for 21 hours at Islamabad round one — Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — has resigned as Iran’s lead negotiator, forced out by hardline factions who objected to his approach.
What Happened
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, head of Iran’s negotiating team with the United States, has stepped down amid internal disagreements, sources familiar with the matter told Iran International. Ghalibaf was reprimanded for attempting to include the nuclear issue in talks with Washington and was forced to resign, according to the sources.
A possible shake-up has been floated, with hardline politician Saeed Jalili potentially replacing Ghalibaf as head of the negotiating team. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is also seeking to take over the negotiations, sources said.
The specific charge against Ghalibaf is revealing in the extreme. He was not forced out for being too aggressive toward the Americans, or for refusing to make concessions. He was forced out for the opposite: for attempting to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme — the central issue in the entire conflict — with the US delegation.
That attempt was seen by hardliners as a step toward the kind of compromises on enrichment that the IRGC and Khamenei’s inner circle have categorically refused to allow.
What This Means for Talks
The irony is acute. Ghalibaf — a former IRGC general whom Trump described as part of the “fractured” hardline faction — was apparently more willing to engage on the nuclear question than the truly hardline figures around him.
His forced resignation for attempting to include nuclear issues in talks suggests Iran’s IRGC-aligned factions are actively preventing their own negotiating team from discussing the core issue.
Divisions within Iran’s leadership prevented a negotiating team from traveling to Islamabad for talks with the US, Iran International has learned. Tensions between allies of President Masoud Pezeshkian and figures close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s office derailed the trip at the last minute.
This explains the chaotic mixed signals of the past week: Islamabad locked down, both sides publicly announcing talks, Iran’s foreign ministry simultaneously denying them. The trip was derailed at the last minute by internal Iranian politics — specifically, by Khamenei’s office intervening to prevent a delegation from engaging on terms that the supreme leader had not sanctioned.
The Jalili Threat
Saeed Jalili being floated as a potential replacement is the most alarming element of this report for any prospect of a deal. Jalili is Iran’s former nuclear negotiator — a man whose approach in every previous round of talks was to run out the clock, make no concessions, and return home with Iran’s nuclear programme intact.
He is the figure most associated with the Iranian negotiating strategy of delay-and-expand that brought the country to the brink of nuclear weapons capability before the JCPOA was signed in 2015. If Jalili replaces Ghalibaf, the probability of a deal collapses dramatically.
Araghchi’s Countermove
That Araghchi is “seeking to take over” the negotiations is the civilian team’s countermove against Jalili’s possible appointment. Araghchi, already in Islamabad meeting Pakistani officials, is positioning himself as the functional lead whether or not he receives the formal title — creating facts on the ground in the Pakistani capital while the internal argument in Tehran continues.
A US official said Ghalibaf grew frustrated with the infighting in the Iranian leadership after the previous round of talks, and even threatened to step aside.
Ghalibaf’s own frustration with the infighting — visible to US officials from the outside — suggests he understood he was being constrained by forces beyond his control. His resignation, voluntary or forced, is the result of a political environment in Tehran that makes genuine negotiation nearly impossible for anyone unwilling to take instructions from IRGC hardliners.
