US officials attempted to warn Iran of fears that Israel would assassinate mediators during talks this spring, two US officials said. The warnings were communicated through intermediaries, the officials said.
Background
The US worried that Israel might assassinate Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliamentary speaker who is leading negotiations with the US, or Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has also been a public face of the talks. There were no immediate indications that US intelligence had knowledge of a specific plot that prompted the warning.
The top Israeli defense official has been public about Jerusalem’s desire to kill senior Iranian leaders, and President Donald Trump has in the past made clear that those efforts were complicating negotiations. In March, he declined to tell reporters who in Iran the US was negotiating with because “I don’t want them to be killed.”
Recent Developments
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at times had intense disagreements on the war with Iran, with Netanyahu frustrated by the ongoing negotiations and Trump believing his Israeli counterpart is too eager to upend a nascent peace. In one particularly heated exchange in June, Trump used expletives to convey his disapproval of a planned military operation in Lebanon by Israel, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
Original reporting: WPBF West Palm Beach — read the source article.
