An Iranian conservative daily warned Tuesday that the country could expel international nuclear inspectors and relocate its enriched uranium if military threats intensify, injecting new tension into Tehran-Washington relations.
The warning came just hours before Rafael Grossi, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was due to arrive in Tehran.
“If a serious military threat emerges, Iran will expel the inspectors, cut their access, and move nuclear materials to locations beyond reach,” Farhikhtegan wrote.
It accused the IAEA of political bias and said Grossi’s previous visits had yielded cooperation only from Iran. “Despite Iran’s compliance, the agency has published reports that fuel anti-Iran resolutions,” it added.
Grossi’s visit coincides with the anticipated second round of negotiations between Iranian and US officials. While details of the agenda remain unclear, the talks have stirred strong opposition across Iran’s ultraconservative press, particularly following mixed signals from Washington.
After the first round of negotiations in Oman on Saturday, US envoy Steve Witkoff said Monday that Iran might be allowed to continue low-level enrichment under a deal resembling the original JCPOA. But on Tuesday, he tweeted that “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
“A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal," the special envoy said.
The hardline daily Kayhan, overseen by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office, focused on Tuesday on Witkoff’s new comments and accused the US of using diplomacy to mask coercive aims.
Editor Hossein Shariatmadari wrote that Witkoff’s offer in earlier talks had “no more value than a cheap political ruse,” adding that the US had “flunked its first test of sincerity.”
“The Americans pretend to negotiate, but their demands expose their true intentions—disarming the Islamic Republic and and plowing its land and people,” Shariatmadari said.
Meanwhile, senior Iranian military adviser Brigadier General Hossein Ashtari told ILNA news agency that Tehran’s stance would not change under pressure.
“Our positions are firm. It is the Americans and the Zionists who must adjust to Iran’s terms,” he said.
With nuclear inspectors in Tehran and diplomacy on a knife’s edge, Iran’s conservative media are pushing a dual message: cooperation remains conditional, but retaliation, if provoked, would be decisive.
Norman Roule, a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency for over 30 years who once oversaw its Iran desk, said Tehran's veteran negotiators could drag out the talks to their advantage while enriching uranium toward levels needed to build a bomb.
“Every day talks drag on, Iran moves closer to the threshold,” he said. “And if it calculates that it gains more from staying on the edge of weaponization than actually building a bomb, it will continue to play this game.”
Tehran has proven adept, Roule said, at “negotiating the negotiation”, or what he described as using drawn-out diplomacy to defuse military threats and reduce sanctions while continuing nuclear development.
As the United States prepares to resume nuclear talks with Iran this weekend, Iran’s leadership would appear to be on the backfoot amid uncertainty over its political succession, economic malaise, regional setbacks and rising international suspicion of its nuclear ambitions.
Iran has historically used negotiations as a pressure valve, Roule said, entering talks only when the threat of military confrontation peaks, with previous talks in 2003, 2012, and 2015 coinciding with an escalated US military presence or regional turmoil.
But this time is different, he argued.
“This regime is weaker, more isolated, and increasingly unpopular. If Iran keeps using its nuclear program as a shield to avoid pressure on its oppression, terrorism, and hostage-taking, the international community must call its bluff.”
According to Roule, the Trump administration is entering the talks with a clear objective: a permanent end to Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon, without repeating the perceived flaws of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The 2015 agreement placed temporary and reversible limits on Iran’s nuclear program but gave Tehran permanent sanctions relief,” Roule said. “The result was that Iran used that economic relief to finance terrorism and militias across the region.”
Now, Washington may seek to allow Iran a more limited civilian nuclear capability while barring any path to weaponization and denying access to funds that could revitalize Iran’s destabilizing regional network.
Historic Strain
The talks with Trump are proceeding as Tehran is at is weakest strategic moment since emerging from the punishing Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Roule argued.
Politically, the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a 2024 helicopter crash removed the only viable successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who shared the veteran leader's ideological alignment and political credentials.
Presidential elections last year saw historically low turnout, signaling popular resignation, and the recent ouster of the Vice President and the Finance Minister pointed to factional infighting.
On the economic front, inflation and the proportion of Iranians living below the poverty line both stand at around 30% while blackouts routinely plunge residents and businesses into the dark.
“This is an economic catastrophe,” he said. “Iran's people are paying the price for decades of mismanagement and isolation.”
Militarily, an Oct. 26 Israeli attack likely knocked out much of Iran's air defenses, capping months of harsh Israeli blows on Tehran's allies Hamas and Hezbollah.
“The ring of fire Iran built around Israel is now broken,” Roule said. “The Quds Force remains, but it is bruised and scattered,” he added, referring to the elite paramilitary force that oversees Tehran's foreign operations.
Moment of reckoning
While Roule emphasized his support for a diplomatic solution, he acknowledged that Israel in particular is closely studying plans for a potential attack
“If Israel delivers a significant strike, it won’t eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability permanently,” he said, “but it could raise the costs so high that Tehran would hesitate to rebuild.”
Still, there was some possibility that Tehran could choose a fundamentally different posture toward the United States.
“This could be the moment the Supreme Leader chooses normalization over confrontation,” Roule said. “The Iranian people — brilliant, resilient — deserve a future that isn’t shaped by threats, militias and sanctions.”
Even before the talks resumed, Mahmood Nabavian, vice chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, had begun taking positions that diverged from the hardline Paydari Party’s stance on both domestic and foreign policy.
As recently as last week, hardliners in the Iranian parliament (Majles) and Friday Prayer imams continued to insist that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei opposed any negotiations with the United States. They maintained that there was no possibility of Iran engaging in talks with anyone from the Trump administration.
That changed on Saturday, April 12, when Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, in Oman. By Monday, it became clear that the meeting had been more substantial than initially disclosed—despite Araghchi’s earlier statements, the two officials had held a face-to-face meeting lasting about 45 minutes.
Iranian hardliners had expected Khamenei to react—perhaps with public disapproval or at least a symbolic rebuke of his foreign minister. But instead, the Supreme Leader remained silent.
At the Majles, ultraconservative lawmaker Hamid Rasaei declared, in a less than happy tone, that the talks had taken place with Khamenei’s full endorsement. Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the hardline daily Kayhan, echoed the sentiment, insisting the meeting would not have occurred without the Supreme Leader’s explicit approval.
This left the ultraconservatives with little ground to stand on regarding the negotiations. Still, pockets of resistance remained in the Majles. Outspoken hardliner Mehdi Kouchakzadeh shouted that the legislature had been kept in the dark about the talks. Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf quickly cut him off, insisting that the Majles was fully informed. Other lawmakers looked on in silence, their expressions unreadable.
Some hardliners such as Nabavian supported the talks as something that was backed by Khamenei but lambasted Araghchi for meeting with Witkoff breaking his promise of not holding direct talks.
On Monday, the moderate conservative website Khabar Online and the reformist, pro-Pezeshkian daily Etemad published detailed reports on the ultraconservatives’ anger over the negotiations, highlighting what they described as a new rift within Iran’s hardline camp.
Khabar Online reported that the ultraconservatives have fractured into several factions. Some figures, it noted, were so enraged that their public remarks included direct insults toward the negotiators. Meanwhile, other conservatives such as Naghavi Hosseini, along with centrists like Mansoor Haghighatpour, criticized the hardliners opposing the talks, branding them "infiltrators who seek to polarize Iranian society."
Abbas Amirifar, a cleric close to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused the ultraconservatives of dishonesty, saying they only pretend to be obedient to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Former lawmaker Gholamali Imanabadi went further, calling them "traitors." From the reformist camp, cleric Mohsen Rohami claimed, "If there were a referendum on negotiating with America, 98 percent of Iranians would vote in favor of the talks."
Khabar Online revealed that many prominent conservatives have repeatedly expressed their support for negotiations with the United States. Even Ali Khezrian, a staunch supporter of Paydari Party at the Majles has defended the negotiations saying that "America has been weakened under Tump and it is now time to negotiate with it."
Others like hardline cleric Mojtaba Zolnouri who had set fire to copies of the 2015 nuclear agreement at the Majles have also supported the talks. Zolnouri said: "We live under the shadow of the Supreme Leader. We will accept whatever he wants."
Curiously, one prominent ultraconservative figure—former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili—has remained conspicuously silent on the ongoing talks. He has not commented on the negotiations themselves, nor on the exchange of letters between Trump and Khamenei that preceded them.
Some Iranian media outlets speculate that Jalili may be mobilizing his "infantry"—a reference to the vigilante groups often active in Tehran and other cities—for a potential street campaign. Another theory circulating among reporters in Tehran is that Jalili is confident the current round of talks will ultimately fail. A third possibility is that he has been instructed by authorities to stay silent for now.
Nonetheless, Jalili still wields influence. His brother Vahid oversees state television, which has maintained its anti-US tone despite the launch of formal negotiations. Media analysts note that state TV continues to give airtime to commentators openly opposed to the talks and to US policy in the region.
A real shift in Khamenei’s stance on negotiations, some observers argue, would only be evident if state television—and Tehran’s hardline newspapers—begin to change their messaging.