It was in this climate that a leaked video of Mohammad-Bagher Kharrazi, the brother-in-law of Masoud Khamenei, the younger brother of Iran’s supreme leader, emerged as part of what critics describe as a broader hard-line campaign.

In the video, Kharrazi claimed that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had “formally and publicly announced” that if Pezeshkian attempts to resign one more time, his resignation would be accepted.

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Soon afterward, however, another audio file surfaced in which Ali Saeedi, a conservative senior figure close to the Khamenei‘s office, claimed that the supreme leader had expressed support for the negotiations and criticised hard-line opposition to diplomacy.

According to Saeedi, Khamenei told one of his brothers: “I have never opposed negotiations, and I still do not. I was the one who authorised the negotiations, and I am not satisfied with the hard-line positions adopted by some people.”

Saeedi also claimed that Khamenei supports Ghalibaf, saying: “He is like [the late Quds Force commander] Haj Qassem Soleimani.”