Leader’s speech shifts playing field toward balanced bargaining
As Iran’s negotiating delegation was holding talks with the US team in Geneva on Tuesday, Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei delivered a speech sharply criticizing Washington’s stance, saying negotiations are meaningless if one side seeks to determine the outcome in advance. He also played down US military threats and underscored Iran’s defensive capabilities. In another part of his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to recent unrest in Iran, describing it as part of a US plan to destabilize the country, and predicted that Washington’s future moves against Iran would follow a similar pattern, but will fail.
Iran Daily interviewed Afifeh Abedi, an international relations expert, about the dimensions of these remarks and their impact on the Tehran-Washington standoff. She said the Leader, through this position, laid out the conceptual framework and red lines of negotiations with the United States and shifted the playing field from “pressure for concessions” to “balanced bargaining.”
IRAN DAILY: What messages does the Leader’s stance send to Western parties? In particular, how does this approach delineate Iran’s framework and red lines in the negotiations?
ABEDI: The recent positions articulated by the Leader were directed both at domestic public opinion and at the American side, including the US president. The emphasis on rejecting a “pre-written agreement” does not amount to rejecting negotiations per se; rather, it signals a refusal to accept an imposed framework. More precisely, opposition was not expressed toward negotiation as a diplomatic tool, but toward a “pre-engineered outcome.”
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