The Trump administration Officials reportedly believed the Israeli government intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators – including the country’s foreign minister – during peace talks with the US in an attempt to sabotage diplomatic progress.
of New York Times reported Thursday that “US concerns about the targeting of two specific Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibafthe Speaker of the Parliament – emphasized during the delicate ceasefire negotiations that began in April.” In response, the US “went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran of the possibility that Israel could target the two officials,” according to the Times, which cited unnamed current and former US officials.
The US and Israel have killed dozens of senior Iranian officials since the start of their illegal joint war in late February. But allied countries RECITED removed Araghchi and Ghalibaf from their target list in late March, opening the possibility of high-level negotiations to end the war.
But Israel remained steadfast in targeting the negotiators, according to the Times, whose reporting was later corroborated by Washington Post.
The Times detailed a dramatic incident in April, when Ghalibaf was planning to travel to the Pakistani capital to meet the US Vice President. JD Vance:
Pakistani fighter jets escorted Iranian planes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the Iranian border to Islamabad and back again when the session ended.
But on the way back to Tehranan Israeli security threat emerged.
Iranian security forces announced that the plane carrying Mr.
Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Mr. Ghalibaf, who accompanied him to Islamabad, confirmed this account in social media page. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s closest airport to the Pakistani border, and the Iranian delegation traveled about eight hours on the ground to Tehran, Mr. Mohammadi and the two officials.
The Post reported that “rifts appeared” between the US and Israeli approaches to the war following Israel’s assassination of senior Iranian national security official Ali Larijani in March.
“They’ve wiped them all out,” Trump told reporters in late March, suggesting that Israel’s assassination campaign was making it difficult to find potential negotiating partners.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for the Responsible State, wrote in response to the new report that “Israel is a state that, on paper, is a partner of the US, but in reality is so extreme in its obsession with undermining American diplomacy that it even tries to kill those with whom the US engages in crucial negotiations.”
“I can’t remember a government as terrified of peace as the one leading Israel,” Parsi added.
Currently, the Israeli government – led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is jeopardizing the meager US-Iran peace talks with its continued occupation and attack on Lebanonwhich Iran has highlighted as a key factor in the negotiations.
Visiting occupied Lebanon earlier this week, Netanyahu DECLARING to Israeli troops that “our insistence is that we will not leave … until the threat is removed.”
COMES has written earlier this week that “beyond his long-held desire to use American force to subdue Iran to Israeli dominance and achieve a regional balance favorable to IsraelNetanyahu “now has both strong political and personal reasons to restart the war” with Iran.
“The United States and Iran memorandum of understanding) has come at a heavy political cost to Netanyahu,” Parsi wrote. “His prospects for re-election in October are slimmer than they were in the month. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely able to deliver President Trump, he now faces the prospect that war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position — undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.”
“And of course,” added Parsi, “if he loses the election, he will likely spend the next few years in prison, as he will lose immunity as prime minister and face trial on corruption charges.”
