Trump claims on Iranian concessions prompt questions, rejections in Tehran | US-Israel war against Iran News

Tehran, Iran – US President Donald Trump’s announcements about obtaining major concessions from Tehran led supporters of the Iranian establishment, causing rejections and clarifications from the authorities.

Several current and former senior officials, state media and the Islamic Republic’s die-hard supporters expressed anger, frustration and confusion after the US leader made a series of demands, with days remaining on a two-week ceasefire reached on April 8.

Trump said on Friday that Iran and the US would jointly dig up the enriched uranium buried under the rubble of bombed Iranian nuclear sites and transfer it to the US. He claimed Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium on its soil.

He also said the Strait of Hormuz had been opened and would never be closed again, while the US naval blockade of Iran’s ports remained in place, and sea mines had been removed or were in the process of being removed.

Trump also emphasized that Iran will not receive billions of dollars of its own frozen assets abroad due to US sanctions, and that the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is completely unrelated to Iran.

Amidst Pakistan’s continuous efforts Seeking to mediate another round of negotiations, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation to the Islamabad talks earlier this month, rejected all of Trump’s claims.

“They didn’t win the war with these lies, and they certainly won’t get anywhere in negotiations,” I posted on X early Saturday.

By Saturday afternoon, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement saying that the Strait of Hormuz was once again heavily restricted and under “strict management” of the armed forces. It cited continued “acts of piracy and maritime theft under the so-called label of a blockade” by Washington as the reason.

‘Haze of Confusion’

In the hours between Trump’s flurry of announcements on Friday and official responses from Iranian authorities, establishment supporters expressed serious concerns about any major concessions.

“Is there no Muslim out there to talk to the people a bit about what is happening?!” Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former state television chief and current member of the Supreme Cyberspace Council that controls the heavily restricted internet in Iran, wrote on X.

Alireza Zakani, the hardline mayor of Tehran, said that if any of Trump’s claims are true, the Iranian establishment must be careful “not to give the abominable enemy in negotiations what they could not achieve on the ground.”

A fan account on X for Saeed Jalili, an ultra-hardline member of the Supreme National Security Council who has for decades opposed any deals with the US, said “disagreement” may be at play. It said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from outside of several written statements attributed to him, should release a voice or video message to confirm what is happening.

Jalili’s main account distanced itself from the comment, saying the fan account – which has since been deleted – was a sign of “infiltration” by enemies of Iran trying to sow discord.

Iranian state media on Saturday released another written statement attributed to Khamenei to mark Army Day, but made no mention of the political drama that unfolded hours earlier, or the negotiations with the USA.

The dissonance was evident Friday on state television and other state-linked media, especially those affiliated with the IRGC.

Several state television hosts and analysts slammed Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for tweeting on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz “has been declared fully open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by the Ports and Maritime Organization.”

One of the hosts demanded that Araghchi clarify immediately. Another said the top diplomat’s tweet was in English, and since the Iranian people do not have access to X due to the state-imposed near-total internet shutdown for seven weeks, the message was not directed at the people.

With a large Hezbollah flag in the background, an angry presenter on state television’s Channel 3 claimed that Araghchi was somehow “the representative of the people of Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq” because they are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” of armed forces, so he should demand concessions from Trump on their behalf.

Morteza Mahmoudvand, a representative of Tehran in the Iranian parliament, went so far as to say that Araghchi would have been prosecuted if not for “the pretext of war”.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars and Tasnim news sites also heavily criticized Araghchi and called for further clarification on Friday night, with Fars arguing that “Iranian society is plunged into a haze of confusion.”

Armed supporters in the streets

Critical comments from supporters of the Iranian government also flooded social media, including local messaging apps and the comments section of state-run websites.

“We took to the streets every night with clear demands, but you shook hands with the murderer of our supreme leader and handed over our straits to the Zionists,” one user wrote in the local app Baleh on Friday, referring to Israel.

“After all the years of sanctions and war and costs imposed on the people, if you want to give up the uranium and the strait, then why did you play with the people’s livelihood and the blood of the martyrs for so long?” another user wrote.

A large number of analysts and media personalities, including Hossein Shariatmadar, the head of the Kayhan newspaper, which was appointed by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also expressed criticism and demanded answers from Fars and other outlets.

Regardless of whether there will be more mediated negotiations in Pakistan or whether the war will continue, Iran continues to encourage and arm supporters to take to the streets to maintain control.

State media on Friday broadcast footage of more armed convoys moving through the streets of Tehran, waving the flags of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi and other groups. The video below shows women and children mounted on the back of vans with heavy machine guns during a rally in downtown Tehran.

With no end in sight to the state-imposed internet shutdown that has wiped out millions of jobs in Iran, in addition to steel mills and other infrastructure being destroyed, the Iranian economy will continue to suffer.

The timing of the back-and-forth between Trump and Iranian officials meant that oil prices fell before Western markets closed on Friday, and the Iranian currency experienced more volatility.

The rial was priced at around 1.46 million against the US dollar on Saturday morning, the first day of the working week in Iran. But it shot back to around 1.51 million after the IRGC announced the repeated closure of the Strait of Hormuz.