Amid reports of a deal between the US and Iran to end their 107-day war and open the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran has made a cautious response to the deal, acknowledging the pact to end the hostilities, amid opposition from Iranian hardliners against the deal.
US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Sunday evening. "The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all," he said. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also announced that a peace deal, stating it will be officially signed off in a ceremony in Switzerland on June 19.
Tehran, for its part, confirmed it when Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said on state television that Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed on Friday. He said the deal followed talks with Qatar, another mediator.
However, Iran’s military had a rather scathing reaction to the deal. The military, in a statement aired on state television, claimed it “humiliated” the United States and Israel. “Iranian forces have, through the imposition of their divine and iron will upon the humiliated American and Zionist enemies, demonstrated with strength that the enemy has no path other than accepting defeat and surrender”, the statement added.
However, there is a wave of criticism of the Iran-US agreement within the country, especially from the hardliners. On Saturday, a protest rally was held by a group of government supporters who were chanting slogans against some officials of the Islamic Republic in opposition to the deal.
In one of these rallies held in Ibn Sina Square in Tehran, protesters chanted slogans against the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the main negotiators.
"Shame on the Iraqi, leave the country", and "Ghalibaf, Iraqi, what about the blood of my leader?", Ghalibaf, Iraqi, resign, resign" were among other slogans at these rallies.
A rally in Mashhad saw protesters holding placards opposing the agreement and harshly criticising the negotiators. They chanted slogans such as “Death to Araqchi, the dishonourable compromiser.”
The regime seems to be wary of this opposition, as evident from the statement of government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani. A report that appeared in state media quoted her statement, calling on political factions to avoid undermining national interests through partisan disputes, saying “internal divisions would send a message of weakness to adversaries.”
“Any decision taken at this level of the country’s foreign policy is not an individual or factional decision, but a decision of the system and the result of conclusions reached by the country’s responsible institutions,” Mohajerani said, while defending senior Iranian negotiators, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, saying both had long records of defending Iran’s national interests.
