US Uses Kurdish President as Secret Channel to Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander

In May, the US administration established a secret and direct communication channel with General Ahmad Vahidi, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, amid doubts in the White House about whether Iranian negotiators truly represented the powerful organization. The mediator chosen was Nechirvan Barzani, President of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, trusted by senior officials in both Washington and Tehran. Barzani, fluent in Persian and with longstanding ties to Iranian leadership, including the Revolutionary Guards, was contacted by then-National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard around May 10 to facilitate direct dialogue with Vahidi.

This covert channel emerged after the US suspected that Iranian negotiators, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, lacked authority to finalize agreements, with the Revolutionary Guards potentially overriding their decisions. Barzani met with a senior Revolutionary Guards official in Erbil on May 14, where Vahidi expressed full support for the negotiators and a preference to resolve the crisis through talks. Barzani relayed this to the White House, which then proposed secret meetings in Erbil between senior US and Iranian officials. However, Iranian concerns about Israeli intelligence operations in Iraqi Kurdistan prevented these talks from occurring.

The episode highlights the difficulty the US faces in negotiating with Iran, where decision-making authority is unclear and power is concentrated in the Revolutionary Guards, especially following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and subsequent conflict. Despite ongoing back-channel communications via mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, progress remains limited. Barzani recently offered to help revive negotiations, but experts like former Middle East advisor Brett McGurk emphasize that the core issue lies with Iran's policy stance, which is unlikely to change soon.