In Monday night’s presidential debate, President Obama again denied
reports in “newspapers” but later contradicted himself and admitted to
the possibility of bilateral meetings with Iran.
In the heat of the moment and in response to Gov. Mitt Romney’s
criticism of his handling of Iran’s nuclear program, the president said,
“I’m pleased that you now are endorsing our policy of applying
diplomatic pressure and potentially having bilateral discussions with
the Iranians to end their nuclear program.”
Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department expert on proliferation
and now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, stated
that, “I have been hearing for some time that they had been having
private discussions, and now it is starting to become public.”
The British newspaper the Guardian reported the same on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said
Obama is open to having bilateral talks with Iran about its nuclear
program, but the United States has not scheduled any negotiations.
As reported on Oct. 4 and again on Oct. 18,
a three-person delegation representing the Obama administration
secretly met with their Iranian counterparts about Oct. 1 in Doha,
Qatar.
The source who provided details of that meeting and who remains
anonymous for security reasons because he is highly placed in Iran’s
regime, added that after the WND revelation of the secret meeting,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was incensed.
The Iranian supreme leader demanded the Americans explain about the
leak, which prompted the White House to leak a soft version of the story
to the New York Times and deny the facts.
With that, the source said, the Obama administration tried damage
control, first by indicating that the story revolved around an agreement
for after the elections so no pre-election political motive could be
ascribed, and second to ease the mind of the Islamic regime’s leaders
about any leaks on the actual event.
The White House, which originally gave a “no comment” to the WND story, responded to the Times story.
“It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to
one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American election,” Tommy
Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Saturday.
The source pointed to the clever response by the White House in
denying any agreements for future talks rather than any previous meeting
and agreement.
According to the source, who provided new information, the Qatar
meeting lasted for about 11 hours, requiring two breaks so the Iranian
delegate could do daily prayers.
Besides the woman who led the American team, the source said, there
were two American men, one of whom, in his early 60s with slightly
darker receding hair, had spent time in Iran before the Islamic
revolution. The other, in his 30s, had a military haircut and carried a
briefcase so he could report back to Washington live through encrypted
messages.
The American woman had met the Iranian delegate, Ali Akbar Velayati,
several times before and was trusted by him. Velayati, a close adviser
of the supreme leader on international affairs, met privately with the
woman for four hours before both groups continued talks.
The source identified the other Iranian present as Asghar Hejazi, a
cleric in charge of the 12,000-member Sepah-e-Vali Amr, which protects
Khamenei. Hejazi has final authority over all intelligence and security
of the Islamic regime.
The presence of Velayati, who makes the international decisions for
the regime, and Hejazi, who heads the intelligence and security
divisions in the supreme leader’s office, shows that Khamenei is in
direct talks with the Obama administration, the source said.
The source emphasized that the Americans requested an announcement on
an agreement to partially halt enrichment temporarily before the U.S.
elections to help with Obama’s re-election, but the revelation of the
meeting caused both sides to re-evaluate the announcement’s timing.
The revelation has also aggravated both Russia and the European
Union, which have been participating in multilateral talks of 5+1 on the
Iranian nuclear program.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is rushing to Tehran
to warn of any back-channel dealings with America, the source said. So
is a delegate from the European Union arriving to strengthen its
economic position.
According to the source, in the past five months, four meetings were
held in the U.S. with the Islamic regime’s surrogates (two of whom have
green cards and travel to America routinely) to hash out what was to be
discussed at the Qatar meeting. The source identified Valerie Jarrett, a
senior Obama adviser, as the head of the U.S. effort to engage Iran.
The Qatar agreement would have Iran announce a partial halt to
enrichment, ensure the regime’s right to peaceful enrichment, quickly
remove much of the sanctions, accept that Iran’s nuclear program does
not have a military dimension, and relieve international pressure on the
regime while it continues its nuclear program.
Khamenei has asked for a written guarantee from Obama to ensure the
U.S. would abide by its promises. He once threatened to reveal the
contents of a previous Obama letter if threats (referring to Israel)
were carried out against the regime. The source said Obama’s letter
urged the Islamic regime to avoid giving any reason to Israel to attack
and urged collaboration on a peaceful nuclear program.
The news of the revelation of the secret meeting was reflected widely
in Iranian media without any official statement by regime officials,
although they denied any agreement on future one-on-one meetings, as the
White House did.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).
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