Reports: Mojtaba Khamenei Rejects U.S. Peace Deal as Iranian Leadership Appears Divided
Iranian negotiators reportedly signaled that a deal with Washington was ready, but new claims suggest the final approval from Iran’s supreme leadership may not have been secured
Reports emerging from the region suggest that Iran’s leadership may be divided over a proposed deal with the United States, raising new doubts about whether an agreement can be finalized.
According to the reports, Iranian negotiators had signaled that the deal was ready to move forward. However, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly refused to approve the proposal. The reported rejection comes after claims that senior Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, had presented the agreement as essentially ready without securing final approval from Khamenei.
If accurate, the development could point to a serious internal split inside Tehran’s leadership at a critical moment in the negotiations.
It also raises questions about whether mediators were given an incomplete or misleading picture of Iran’s actual position. While parts of Iran’s political leadership may have been prepared to move toward a deal, the final decision appears to remain in the hands of the supreme leadership.
For Washington, the question now is whether Iran’s negotiating team had the authority to finalize an agreement, or whether the talks advanced further than Tehran’s supreme leadership was willing to accept.
For Tehran, the dispute exposes a deeper dilemma: whether to accept a deal under American pressure, or reject it and risk another round of escalation.
At this stage, the reports remain unconfirmed, and Iranian officials have not issued a clear final statement confirming Khamenei’s rejection. But if the claims are accurate, the proposed U.S.-Iran deal may be facing its most serious obstacle yet, not from Washington, but from inside Iran itself.