Iran’s hard-liners attack leaders over talks with Washington

Hard-line mourners heckled Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian at Ali Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran, turning a solemn public gathering into the latest stage for Iran’s fight over talks with Washington. One account said Araghchi was forced away from the crowd on a motorbike, underscoring how quickly the dispute has moved from private factional maneuvering to open confrontation in the streets.

That hostility did not begin at the funeral. On June 13, dozens of protesters gathered outside a foreign ministry office in Mashhad to oppose the U.S.-Iran talks, and later the same day hard-line demonstrators in Tehran chanted against Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf over the emerging deal. By June 16, supporters of the hard-line camp were chanting death slogans against both men, a sign that the backlash has become a sustained campaign rather than a one-day protest.

The clash has also split the state itself. In parliament, 261 of the 290 lawmakers reportedly signed a statement backing Ghalibaf and other negotiators, even as members tied to the Paydari Front kept up their attacks on any accommodation with the United States. Analysts say that public dissent is real, but the hard-liners do not yet appear to control enough institutions to shut down the talks outright.

What makes the fight so explosive is the set of issues attached to it: the Strait of Hormuz, uranium enrichment, sanctions relief and the memory of recent war all sit inside the same argument over whether diplomacy is leverage or surrender. Iranian officials have also warned that the talks could be abandoned if Donald Trump keeps issuing threatening messages, a reminder that Tehran’s negotiating line is still being shaped by both external pressure and internal rivalry. For now, the loudest opponents of the Washington track have exposed the regime’s fault lines, but they have not yet shown the power to close them.