{"id":33686,"date":"2026-03-24T11:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T11:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/33686\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T11:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T11:12:15","slug":"irans-parliament-speaker-qalibaf-floated-as-us-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/33686\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s parliament speaker, Qalibaf, floated as US contact"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Long before he became Iran\u2019s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf went on a charm offensive for almost two decades, portraying himself as a hard-liner the West could do business with in the Islamic Republic<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would like the West to change its attitude to Iran and trust Iran, and rest assured that there\u2019s an attitude in Iran to advance issues through dialogue,\u201d he told The Times newspaper of London in 2008. <\/p>\n

With the U.S. and Israel\u2019s war with Iran<\/a> in its fourth week, the 64-year-old pilot and former Revolutionary Guard commander has denied there have been talks with the United States amid reports that he was floated as Washington\u2019s negotiating partner in talks. <\/p>\n

Questions also remain as to what power Qalibaf has within Iran\u2019s theocracy<\/a>, shattered after the Feb. 28 Israeli airstrike that killed 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Khamenei\u2019s son, Mojtaba<\/a>, now Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, has backed Qalibaf through his repeated and failed presidential campaigns. Still, multiple centers of power within Iran\u2019s theocracy now likely vie for control of the Islamic Republic \u2014 and uncertainties remain over Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s status as he has yet to be seen after reportedly being wounded. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Qalibaf has been tied to the crackdown against protesters calling for change within Iran\u2019s government and has seen corruption allegations swirl around him during his time in office. <\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> may just be looking for an Iranian version of Venezuela\u2019s acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, who took over as the U.S. military seized former Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> in January. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany Iranians despise Ghalibaf; diplomats see him as pragmatic,\u201d wrote analyst Michael Rubin, using a different transliteration for the politician\u2019s last name. \u201cThose diplomats confuse pragmatism with opportunism. Ghalibaf is a survivor. He sees in Trump someone who can help him achieve what late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei denied him: the presidency or some equivalent interim leadership role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed close to the Guard, on Tuesday described reports in Western media as a \u201cpolitical bomb\u201d meant to put the country\u2019s leaders in disarray.<\/p>\n

\u201cQalibaf was introduced as a negotiating party in order to present a contradictory and non-unified image of Iran,\u201d Tasnim said. \u201cThe mention of Qalibaf\u2019s name was clearly intended to create internal divisions within Iran and to provoke conflict among political forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qalibaf\u2019s rise within Iran\u2019s theocracy<\/p>\n

Qalibaf was born in the city of Torqabeh in Iran\u2019s northeastern Razavi Khorasan province to a father who was a shopkeeper \u2014 not a member of the Shiite clergy that seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. <\/p>\n

Like many young men of his generation, he joined the paramilitary Guard during the country\u2019s bloody 1980s war with Iraq, quickly rising through the ranks. After the conflict, he served as the head of the Guard\u2019s construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, for several years leading efforts to rebuild.<\/p>\n

Trained as a pilot, he then served as the head of the Guard\u2019s air force. In 1999, he co-signed a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid student protests in Tehran over the government closing a reformist newspaper and a subsequent security force crackdown. The letter warned Khatami the Guard would take action unilaterally unless he agreed to putting down the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Violence around the protests, the first in a string of widening demonstrations over the last decades, saw several people killed, hundreds wounded and thousands arrested.<\/p>\n

Qalibaf then became the head of Iran\u2019s police, modernizing the force and implementing the country\u2019s 110 emergency phone number. However, a leaked recording of a later meeting between Qalibaf and members of the Guard\u2019s volunteer Basij force, had him claiming that he ordered gunfire be used against demonstrators in 2003 and praising the violence used in Iran\u2019s 2009 Green Movement protests.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s then-President Hassan Rouhani hinted at the the 2003 incident when the two sparred in a 2017 presidential election debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an argument that you were saying that the students should come then we can pincer attack to them and finish the job,\u201d Rouhani said at the time.<\/p>\n

Qalibaf offered himself as alternative to Ahmadinejad<\/p>\n

As Tehran\u2019s mayor from 2005 to 2017, Qalibaf faced corruption allegations, including over some $3.5 million being donated to a foundation run by his wife. <\/p>\n

However, he also used his prominence to travel to the World Economic Forum and even praised New York City in an interview with The Financial Times, undoubtedly raising eyebrows among other hard-liners. His opponents claimed Qalibaf was like Reza Pahlavi, a hard-charging soldier who became shah in 1925 and rapidly pushed to Westernize Persia and rename it Iran before handing power to his son Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.<\/p>\n

Qalibaf didn\u2019t outright reject the comparison. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf authoritarianism means when collective sense reaches a plan and decision, I\u2019m very determined and firm in carrying it out,\u201d Qalibaf told The Financial Times in 2008, casting himself as an alternative to the hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. \u201cWhen the expediency of the society is in carrying a project, then I\u2019m very firm and show little flexibility and don\u2019t let that collective sense be marred or disarrayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qalibaf ran in presidential elections in 2005, 2013, 2017 and 2024 but despite the failures of those campaigns, U.S. diplomats suggested he enjoyed the support of Mojtaba Khamenei, according to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. <\/p>\n

\u201cMojtaba reportedly has long maintained a very close relationship with Tehran Mayor and presidential hopeful Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf; Mojtaba was reportedly the \u2018backbone\u2019 of Qalibaf\u2019s past and continuing election campaigns,\u201d an August 2008 cable read. \u201cMojtaba is said to help Qalibaf as an advisor, financier, and provider of senior-level political support. His support for and closeness to Qalibaf reportedly remains undiminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Khamenei now Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, Qalibaf\u2019s position may be significantly boosted.<\/p>\n

Qalibaf\u2019s name floated as a possible negotiator<\/p>\n

Trump pulled back from a 48-hour deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, media reports suggested Qalibaf may be a possible Iranian contact for the U.S. government. Qalibaf himself has denied any talks are ongoing. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,\u201d he wrote Monday on X.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, unlike many officials within Iran\u2019s government, Qalibaf\u2019s name is not on any U.S. bounty.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether the Israelis view Qalibaf as a target. As parliament speaker, Qalibaf praised the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, saying that it showed the \u201cZionist regime will never have peace until the day it is annihilated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump as well apparently appeared concerned Monday that his unnamed negotiating partner could jeopardize the safety of any talks. <\/p>\n

Asked why he wouldn\u2019t name the Iranian negotiator, Trump told journalists: \u201cBecause I don\u2019t want them to be killed, OK? I don\u2019t want them to be killed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Long before he became Iran\u2019s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf went on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[327,325,7833,38,1303,197,2332,34,61,196,37,2494,15293,5637,15294,4077,2289,294,11584,81,1494,2597,1868,69,771,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-33686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-corruption","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-hassan-rouhani","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iran-government","17":"tag-iran-war","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-mahmoud-ahmadinejad","20":"tag-michael-g-rubin","21":"tag-mohammad-bagher-qalibaf","22":"tag-mohammad-baqr-qalibaf","23":"tag-mohammad-khatami","24":"tag-mojtaba-khamenei","25":"tag-nicolas-maduro","26":"tag-political-and-civil-unrest","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","29":"tag-religion-and-politics","30":"tag-reza-pahlavi","31":"tag-tehran","32":"tag-washington-news","33":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116283856818070998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}