Israel Planned to Kill Key Iranian Negotiators During Peace Talks, NYT Reports

According to the newspaper, in April the United States suspected Israel of preparing an operation against Tehran’s two main representatives in the talks—parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. In response, Washington asked several countries to warn Iran of the possible threat.

In April, Ghalibaf was due to fly to Islamabad for a meeting with Vice President Vance. Iranian security services feared that Israel could use the trip to attempt to assassinate him or Araghchi and thereby derail the negotiations.

According to the sources, Iran sought assurances through intermediaries from Pakistan and Qatar that Israel would not conduct covert operations against the Iranian delegation.

Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian planes from the border with Iran to Islamabad and back after the meeting ended. On the return flight, however, a threat emerged. Iranian security services told Ghalibaf’s aircraft that they had received intelligence about a possible Israeli attack. According to their information, two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace through the western border, near Iraq.

Ghalibaf’s adviser confirmed that the plane made an emergency landing in Mashhad—the nearest major city to the Pakistani border. The Iranian delegation then spent about eight hours traveling to Tehran by land.

Three senior Iranian officials also said that Ghalibaf narrowly survived during the war in June 2025 and during the most recent war, when Israel attacked a secret meeting of senior officials in a bunker in the mountains. According to them, in both cases the parliament speaker was pulled from the rubble.