He Refused a Handshake and Hid His Face: Striking Details Emerge About the Meeting Between Mojtaba Khamenei and Pezeshkian
New details have emerged regarding an unusual meeting between the Iranian president and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in a development that appears to reveal a deep crisis of trust at the highest levels of power in Iran.
This was reported by the opposition channel Iran International, which claimed to have obtained exclusive information revealing the circumstances surrounding the meeting between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mojtaba Khamenei.
The unusual nature of the encounter extended beyond its location and included the manner in which the country’s president was allegedly treated.
Where and how did the meeting take place?
According to the channel, Pezeshkian was escorted by security personnel to a secret location in Tehran, where he met Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly seated in the back seat of a dark-windowed commercial vehicle.
The meeting lasted only a few minutes before the Iranian president was asked to leave the area.
The unusual circumstances did not end there. According to the sources, Pezeshkian was not allowed to shake Khamenei’s hand or even see his face, as communication between the two men was reportedly limited to spoken conversation.
The same sources added that the treatment angered Pezeshkian, who considered it humiliating. Staff members from the presidential office reportedly said that, upon his return, the president questioned whether the person he had spoken to inside the vehicle was truly the Supreme Leader, given that he had left the meeting without seeing his face.
It remains unclear whether this question stemmed merely from his frustration or whether he genuinely doubted the identity of the individual he had met.
Last April, Reuters cited three sources described as close to Khamenei’s inner circle, reporting that his face had been severely disfigured during the airstrike that killed his father on the first day of the war, on February 28.
According to those sources, Mojtaba Khamenei sustained serious injuries to his face and leg as a result of the strike.
In mid-May, Pezeshkian stated that he had held a meeting lasting two and a half hours with Mojtaba Khamenei.
According to Iran International, Khamenei’s office agreed to the meeting only after repeated requests from Pezeshkian and after he threatened to resign. He was then informed that the meeting would not take place at the Supreme Leader’s usual residence, contrary to standard procedures.
A request for another meeting rejected
In a related development, the same sources reported that Pezeshkian recently requested another meeting with Mojtaba Khamenei, this time at the Supreme Leader’s residence, but that request has reportedly been rejected so far.
These developments come at a time when no audio or video recordings of Mojtaba Khamenei have been released for nearly five months, since he was appointed Iran’s third Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts following the death of his father, Ali Khamenei, during the initial Israeli-American strikes against Iran in late February.
Amid this uncertainty, U.S. President Donald Trump stated three weeks ago that he was 90 percent convinced that Khamenei had been killed, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared that he was still alive.
On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that he had not met the new Supreme Leader during this period and that only a small number of people had been able to see him.
Tensions within the ruling establishment
In another indication of tensions within Iran’s leadership circles, Mohammad Bagher Kharazi, who is close to the Supreme Leader’s family and related to it by marriage, stated that Mojtaba Khamenei had warned that if Pezeshkian submitted his resignation again, it would be accepted.
Kharazi further stated that the Supreme Leader was also planning changes within Iran’s negotiating team and the Supreme National Security Council.
