The abrupt interruption of a televised interview featuring Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Parliament and head of the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team, has drawn an official response from the parliament’s media center. The center issued a statement declaring that key portions of the interview covering the war, the Strait of Hormuz, and the memorandum of understanding with the United States were withheld from broadcast by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) without prior coordination.
According to the parliament’s media center, the interview was recorded in coordination with the IRIB “in alignment with the Supreme Leader’s directive to pursue the provisions of the Islamabad Memorandum” and to provide an official report to the public. The footage was delivered to the broadcaster more than two hours before its scheduled airtime, yet the broadcast was suddenly cut short mid-program.
Criticizing the IRIB’s conduct, the media center noted that even if a decision had been made to censor parts of the interview, “the bare minimum expectation” was that the issue should have been coordinated with the parliament’s media team before airtime.
The omitted segments, as detailed by the center, included Ghalibaf’s responses to “claims regarding IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites,” explanations on the unfreezing of blocked assets, the $300 billion reconstruction fund outlined in the memorandum, replies to Donald Trump’s remarks, and an elucidation of the June 17 message from Mojtaba Khamenei, the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.
