The latest
Iran’s state broadcaster cut the transmission of a pre-recorded interview with parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday night, stopping the broadcast mid-sentence without explanation. Parliament’s media center issued a rare protest statement saying the full recording had been delivered to IRIB more than two hours before airtime, and that the cut came with no prior coordination.
Details
• According to the outlet Entekhab, the broadcast was stopped at the moment Ghalibaf was referencing a failed deal from the Raisi era involving the transfer of $6 billion from South Korea to Qatar for humanitarian purposes. Entekhab attributed this to its own sources; it is not officially confirmed.
• The outlet Tabnak published the text of what Ghalibaf said in the cut section, including: “This agreement is a document of America’s defeat. This is the power of the Islamic Republic — be proud of it and stand behind it. They don’t want to admit that oil exports are happening with OFAC authorization.”
• Parliament’s media center said the suppressed portion included responses to IAEA inspection claims, details on releasing frozen assets, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund written into the MoU.
• The conservative newspaper Farhikhtegan criticized IRIB in unusually direct terms: “How did Nabavian get on air when everyone knew what he would say, while Ghalibaf’s far more measured remarks get cut? Both sides committed an unforgivable error.” The paper added: “If Ghalibaf stays silent, he’s accused of hiding things. If he tries to brief the public, the broadcaster pulls the plug.”
• MP Mahmoud Nabavian, aligned with Saeed Jalili’s faction, claimed what happened amounts to a “coup” inside Iran’s political structure. Farhikhtegan hit back with the headline “Do you understand what you’re saying?” — calling the claim “a strategic error that completes the enemy’s puzzle” and “a lethal poison for public trust.”
• Kayhan avoided commenting on the broadcast cut but attacked the negotiating team the same day, describing the MoU as a “deception map designed in Washington and Tel Aviv think tanks.”
• The institutional thread: Vahid Jalili — brother of ultraconservative nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili — holds a position inside IRIB, according to Euronews Arabic. The cut was not a technical failure.
What to watch
Ghalibaf says he is operating under the supreme leader’s instructions, but the state broadcaster is blocking him from explaining that to the Iranian public. If that deadlock holds, the internal dispute over the MoU — until now managed behind closed doors — will keep surfacing on air, as Tehran tries to hold together implementation talks in Doha.
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