Iran’s President Pezeshkian seeks to quash divided leadership narrative

Tehran, Iran – A meeting between two of Iran’s leaders may seem routine, but President Masoud Pezeshkian’s announcement that he had a positive discussion with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, is an attempt to push back against efforts from the United States to portray the Islamic Republic’s leadership as divided. Pezeshkian’s announcement on Thursday appears to mark the first time the president has been able to get an audience with Khamenei since the latter’s selection two months ago for Iran’s most powerful position. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list He did not specify when the two-and-a-half-hour meeting was, but said Khamenei facilitated an atmosphere of “trust, calm, solidarity, and direct, unmediated dialogue”, according to state media. Since the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other leaders at the start of the war on February 28, US President Donald Trump and others have pushed the notion that military, security and political authorities in Tehran are divided. “The time has come for Iran to make the sensible choice,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House on Monday after Washington offered a new proposal to reach an understanding with Iran. “It’s not easy for them to do that, because they have a fracture in their own leadership system. Apart from that, the top people in that government are, to say the least, insane in the brain”. …