Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and in increasingly prominent political figure in Iran who headed the first round of negotiations with the U.S. in Islamabad, Pakistan, dismissed all of the claims that U.S. President Donald Trump made on April 17 about Iran in a posting on X. First, he said, Trump “made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false.” Secondly, the U.S. “did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either.” Third, “with the continuation of the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz will not remain open,” while “passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be conducted based on the ‘designated route’ and with ‘Iranian authorization.’” Furthermore, “Whether the Strait is open or closed and the regulations governing it will be determined by the field, not by social media.”
Finally, Ghalibaf concluded: “Media warfare and engineering public opinion are an important part of war, and the Iranian nation is not affected by these tricks. Read the real and accurate news of the negotiations in the recent interview of the Foreign Ministry spokesman.”
Esmaeil Baqaei, the “Foreign Ministry spokesman” Ghalibaf referred to, stressed on April 17 that Iran’s enriched uranium will under no circumstances be transferred elsewhere. Trump claimed in an interview with Reuters yesterday that “We’re going to get together. We’re going to go in with Iran, at a nice leisurely pace, and go down and start excavating with big machinery…. We’ll bring it back to the United States.” Baqaei said that transferring uranium to the United States has never been considered an option, adding that, just as Iran’s soil is sacred, its enriched uranium holds the same significance.
