Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was taken to a darkened car for what sources described as a brief meeting with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran International reported.
The sources said Pezeshkian’s security detail drove him to an undisclosed location in Tehran. Guards then moved him from his vehicle into the back seat of a commercial car with tinted windows, where the man presented as Khamenei was already inside.
The location was so dark that the two men could not see each other, according to the report. Guards barred a handshake, the sources said. The two men spoke without seeing each other.
Afterward, Pezeshkian asked whether the man had really been Khamenei, according to people in the president’s office. The report said Pezeshkian considered the treatment humiliating, but it was unclear whether his question reflected anger or genuine doubt.
The account conflicts with Pezeshkian’s public description of the meeting. In mid-May, he told trade association representatives that he had spent two and a half hours with Khamenei “in a cordial atmosphere.”
Iran International’s sources said the encounter lasted only a few minutes before officials asked Pezeshkian to leave.
The sources said Pezeshkian repeatedly requested the meeting and threatened to resign before Khamenei’s office agreed. Officials told him he would not be received at the leader’s usual residence, the sources said.
Pezeshkian later requested another meeting at Khamenei’s residence, but the leader’s office has denied the request so far, according to the report.
No Public Recording of Khamenei
According to the outlet, Khamenei had not appeared in any publicly released audio or video in the roughly five months since the Assembly of Experts selected him to succeed his father.
On Sunday, the website of the state-aligned Hamshahri newspaper published a video claiming foreign intelligence services could use an audio recording to locate Khamenei’s hideout.
It claimed intelligence services could examine sound energy, electrical-grid frequencies and surrounding noise to identify his location. The video also claimed that vocal-tract resonances could reveal injuries or anxiety.
Trump said Khamenei was probably dead. Israel’s prime minister said he was alive.
Three weeks before Iran International’s report, U.S. President Donald Trump estimated there was a 90% chance Khamenei had been killed. Israel’s prime minister recently said Khamenei was alive.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a July interview with the online program “The Story of the War” that he had not seen Khamenei during that period and that only a limited number of people had met him.
One day later, Pezeshkian said in a speech that the number of meetings with the leader had increased.
Resignation Warning Reported
In a video circulated on social media Monday, Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, a relative of the Khamenei family by marriage, said the leader had formally warned Pezeshkian that another resignation would be accepted.
Kharrazi referred to 28 previous resignation threats or attempts. “He declared it officially,” Kharrazi said, adding that Pezeshkian and his associates had stopped threatening to resign.
Iran International previously reported that a knowledgeable source said Pezeshkian sent a formal resignation letter to the leader’s office in late May.
According to that source, Pezeshkian sought to resign because of what he described as the Revolutionary Guards’ complete control over the country’s administration.
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