Tension at the top? Iranian President: "It is very difficult to establish contact with the new leader"

Yesterday, Tuesday, the opposition network Iran International reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mojtaba met in May in the back seat of a car parked in a place unknown to the president, with the new supreme leader's face hidden. Pezeshkian tried to shake his hand and was refused, left in anger, and said later that he was not sure he had actually met with Mojtaba.

In the interview itself, Pezeshkian revealed details about a stormy internal dispute within the regime surrounding a decision made by the council to approve a memorandum of understanding. According to him, Mojtaba announced that he was in principle opposed to the decision but allowed it to be passed:

"He said: 'If this gets three-quarters of the votes, I accept.' Instead of three-quarters, the decision received 12 out of 13 votes. This — that he received a professional opinion and decided based on it — became an excuse for a group of people to create division and say things that were not fair and not honest."

He also addressed the regime's handling of the protests last January:

"The leader was sad and we were also very sad. The actions that were taken and the management of the matter — because there was no readiness — many were harmed. I can never get out of my head that many of our young people died, became martyrs, some were injured, some lost limbs. We should not have reached this situation."

However, Pezeshkian attacked critics of the regime abroad who, according to him, spread exaggerated data on the number of dead: "They said: three thousand, thirty-forty thousand, and then incited the people. This shows how much they are villains and traitors to the homeland."

"They activated the snapback, the 12-day war, and the events of last January. Their plans were to conquer Iran like Syria within 48 hours," he said, referring to Israel and the USA. Pezeshkian repeated again his testimony regarding the Israeli strike on the meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, from which he fled on June 15 last year:

"On that day we were supposed to arrive at the leader at 17:00. Four-thirty, five — we were in the meeting. They bombed the place. We survived, we went outside. The whole body was covered in dust, the legs were injured, I got internal bleeding in the knee. They told me that the leader is still waiting for us. We arrived at him around 18:30. He gave us instructions and prayed for us."

At the end of the interview, Pezeshkian complained about the heat in the studio and compared it to the "Karbala desert." He invited the interviewer to his home "to see how it is with us," and said that even in his childhood when he served in Zabol, he did not even have a fan: "I can cool the place here, but one needs to create a culture of patience. Saving 20 percent in energy is equal to one million and 800 thousand barrels of oil — more than what Iran sells today."