{"id":2583536,"date":"2026-03-25T07:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-and-israeli-officials-insist-irans-speaker-is-negotiating-despite-denials\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:39:27","slug":"us-and-israeli-officials-insist-irans-speaker-is-negotiating-despite-denials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-and-israeli-officials-insist-irans-speaker-is-negotiating-despite-denials\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Israeli officials insist Iran&#8217;s speaker is negotiating despite denials"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fus-and-israeli-officials-insist-irans-speaker-is-negotiating-despite-denials%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2583536&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Officials in the United States and Israel say Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf is participating in constructive talks with the U.S., but Qalibaf and Iranian officials deny that any negotiations have begun and call such reports \u201cfake news\u201d meant to manipulate markets. Some accounts cite unnamed sources claiming Qalibaf has led discussions with intermediaries in Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, with a possible meeting involving Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (Araghchi) if agreed, though nothing has been formalized. The story notes Qalibaf\u2019s conservative, loyal-to-the-leader profile and positions him as a potential representative in hypothetical talks, but three Iranian sources say only preliminary contact has occurred and no agreement exists. The piece also features competing views: the NCRI warns that treating Qalibaf as a moderating interlocutor misunderstands Iran\u2019s regime, while Trump administration officials have described him as a \u201chot option\u201d for postwar leadership, and Trump himself says officials like Vance and Rubio are involved in negotiations.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">US, Israeli officials insist Iran&rsquo;s speaker is negotiating despite denials<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2541904\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>Officials in Israel and the United States claim Iran&rsquo;s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Qalibaf is participating in constructive talks with the U.S., but he says negotiations haven&rsquo;t even begun.<\/p>\n<p>An unnamed source <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-890907\">told<\/a> Israeli outlet the<em> Jerusalem Post<\/em> on Monday that Qalibaf has been leading discussions between the Trump administration and Tehran. Separately, an unidentified Israeli official told <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/23\/trump-suspends-iran-strikes-hormuz-negotiations\">Axios<\/a> that U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are in contact with Qalibaf.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/4502491\/trump-deploy-airborne-middle-east-iran\/\">Trump to deploy at least 1,000 airborne troops to Middle East amid Iran peace talks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/4502114\/trump-jokes-hegseth-doesnt-want-iran-war-negotiate\/\">Trump jokes Hegseth doesn&#8217;t want Iran war to end<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/beltway-confidential\/4497875\/trump-risks-encouraging-iranian-escalation\/\">Trump risks encouraging Iranian escalation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>Qalibaf, in his statements issued via social media, has been unambiguous in declaring that those reports are entirely false.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Iran&rsquo;s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo\/Bilal Hussein, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&ldquo;No negotiations have been held with the U.S.,&rdquo; the parliament speaker <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mb_ghalibaf\/status\/2036108696040747128\">wrote<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Qalibaf dismissed reports of any negotiations between the two countries as &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senate-republican-candidates-criticize-vice-president-kamala-harris-for-her-role-as-border-czar\/\" title=\"Senate Republican candidates criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for her role as &quot;border czar.\">fake news&#038;rdquo<\/a>; being used to &ldquo;manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He said the &ldquo;Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Iranian officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Three senior Iranian sources <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/iran-toughens-negotiating-stance-amid-mediation-efforts-sources-say-2026-03-24\/\">told <em>Reuters<\/em><\/a>  on Tuesday that Qalibaf could be the nation&rsquo;s representative in hypothetical negotiations, but that only preliminary communications have occurred via intermediaries in Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be expected to join him in such a meeting, which has not been agreed upon.<\/p>\n<p>The speaker is considered a religious and social conservative within Iranian politics. He previously served as the mayor of Tehran and has put himself forward for the Iranian presidency at least four times since 2005.<\/p>\n<p>He has consistently declared total loyalty to Ayatollah <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/mojtaba-khamenei\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"21453\">Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, emphasizing that his passion for serving the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/big-brother-is-watching-north-korea-bans-happiness-for-10th-anniversary-of-kim-jong-ils-death\/\" title=\"Big Brother Is Watching: North Korea Bans Happiness for 10th Anniversary of Kim Jong...il&#039;s Death\">current supreme leader<\/a> is no different than for his late father who was killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes in the early days of <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/4502114\/trump-jokes-hegseth-doesnt-want-iran-war-negotiate\/\">Operation Epic Fury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his stated ideology, Trump administration officials reportedly <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/03\/23\/hes-a-hot-option-white-house-eyes-irans-parliament-speaker-as-potential-u-s-backed-leader-00840730\">told <em>Politico<\/em><\/a>  that he is a &ldquo;hot option&rdquo; for leading a post-war Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the multiple Iranian opposition groups that have fought the Islamic regime for decades, said viewing Qalibaf as a viable counterpart for peace &ldquo;reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian regime.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Qalibaf is a longtime [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] insider and a key part of the very belligerent and repressive system that has ruled Iran for decades,&rdquo; Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of NCRI&rsquo;s U.S. office, told the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>. &ldquo;Rebranding its insiders as &lsquo;moderates&rsquo; has been tried before and has consistently failed.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Trump has not acknowledged Qalibaf by name in his statements claiming major breakthroughs in diplomacy between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4501966\/trump-says-vance-and-rubio-involved-with-iran-talks\/\">TRUMP SAYS VANCE AND RUBIO ARE &lsquo;INVOLVED&rsquo; IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re talking to us, and they&rsquo;re talking sense,&rdquo; Trump said on Tuesday, explaining that he has adopted a less belligerent posture &ldquo;based on the fact we&rsquo;re negotiating.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The president also said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance are <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4501966\/trump-says-vance-and-rubio-involved-with-iran-talks\/\">involved in the process<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re in negotiations right now. They&rsquo;re doing it, along with Marco and JD; we have a number of people doing it,&rdquo; the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >president told reporters<\/a>. &ldquo;The other side, I can tell you, they&rsquo;d like to make a deal. And who wouldn&rsquo;t if you were them?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; US\/Israel say Iran&#8217;s speaker in talks; Qalibaf denies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Full paraphrase (longer version):<br \/>\nU.S. and Israeli officials claim Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, is involved in negotiations with Washington, while Qalibaf insists no talks have begun and denounces the reports as fake news meant to manipulate markets and distract from the U.S.-Israel situation. Reports attributed to unnamed sources say Qalibaf could serve as Iran\u2019s representative if talks occurred, but only preliminary communications have taken place through intermediaries in Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, and no agreement has been reached. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be expected to join such talks, though nothing has been settled. Qalibaf, a conservative aligned with Supreme Leader Khamenei, has a history as Tehran\u2019s mayor and has run for president several times, professing unwavering loyalty to the leader. Some Trump administration officials have reportedly viewed him as a potential post-war interlocutor, while the National Council of Resistance of Iran says treating him as a viable peace partner reflects a misunderstanding of Iran\u2019s regime. Trump has claimed that negotiations are ongoing and that others, including Rubio and Vance, are involved. If you\u2019d like, I can tailor the tone or shorten this further<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3468,"featured_media":2583537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26083230840569.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651,538],"tags":[3817,3823,11860,73547],"class_list":["post-2583536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","category-washington-examiner","tag-diplomacy","tag-iran","tag-negotiations","tag-us-israel"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26083230840569.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2583536"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2583540,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583536\/revisions\/2583540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2583537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2583536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2583536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2583536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}