The United States believed Israel was plotting to kill Iran’s head negotiators in the middle of the peace talks, with Washington going as far as to warn Tehran through third party countries of the risks, and eventually Pakistani fighter jets escorting the Iranian delegation’s plane to and from Islamabad, according to American officials.
Fears that Israel could derail the fledgling peace talks spiked in April as America believed the Jewish state had their eyes on Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, The New York Times reported Friday.
The two leaders would go on to approve the current peace deal with the US. If they were killed, it would have likely prolonged the conflict as previous assassinations by Israel have.
FM Araghchi and Speaker Ghalibaf were known to have been on a so-called “kill list” back in March, which was composed of top regime officials who Israel sought to remove. The two leaders, however, were removed from the list following intervention from the US as the negotiations began to take form, Reuters reported.
American-Iranian negotiations had previously been halted with an Israeli strike that killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official who had been leading the negotiations in March.
Despite the clear orders to keep Araghchi and Ghalibaf alive, American officials still held concerns that Israel would still try to assassinate them, pushing the US to ask countries in the Middle East to warn Iran about the possibility of an attack, sources told the Times.
The fears appeared all the more real during Ghalibaf’s trip to Pakistan to meet with Vice President JD Vance in April, it was pointed out.
While Iran sought guarantees from the US that their delegation would be safe during the trip, an Israeli security threat emerged on Ghalibaf’s flight back from Islamabad, the Times reported.
“Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over,” the newspaper said.
Moreover, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz was not a “theatre for the military display of extra-regional powers”.