Tension at the Top? Iran's President: 'Very Hard to Make Contact with the New Leader'

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hinted at rifts within the regime's leadership, saying it is very hard to make contact with the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. In an interview he gave, Pezeshkian spoke of an internal dispute over the approval of a memorandum of understanding in the council: Mojtaba announced he was principled in opposition but allowed the decision to pass if it received three-quarters of the votes, and in practice it received 12 out of 13 votes. He claimed that a group of people exploited this to create division. Pezeshkian also addressed the regime's handling of the January protests, saying many were harmed and that this situation should not have been reached, but he attacked foreign critics who spread exaggerated figures on the number of deaths. He accused Israel and the US of attempting to conquer Iran like Syria within 48 hours, and reiterated his testimony about the Israeli strike on the Supreme National Security Council meeting on June 15 last year, from which he escaped with injuries. At the end of the interview, he complained about the heat in the studio and compared it to the 'Karbala desert'.