American officials believed Israel was preparing to assassinate Iran’s two most senior ceasefire negotiators — Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — and took the extraordinary step of warning Tehran through regional intermediaries, according to current and former US officials cited by The New York Times and The Washington Post. The alert, conveyed this spring via Pakistan and Qatar, reflected Washington’s assessment that any such attack would collapse the fragile diplomatic process that began with an 8 April truce and reignite full-scale hostilities.

Viewed from Washington, the preservation of the negotiating channel had become a strategic priority. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the American press that once serious talks commenced in April, eliminating Araghchi or Ghalibaf would end diplomacy and risk a wider war. The Trump administration had already concluded that Iran’s political and military establishment would likely survive the conflict, shifting its objective from regime change to a negotiated settlement. According to a Western official cited in the reports, the killing of national security chief Ali Larijani in March marked a turning point, depriving Washington of a key interlocutor. The administration subsequently asked Israel to refrain from targeting the remaining political leadership, and a White House official stated that the president “wants the peace process to play out.”

In Tehran’s assessment, the threat was concrete and persistent. Iranian security officials told media that Ghalibaf had narrowly survived two previous Israeli attempts on his life — once during the twelve-day war of June 2025 and again when a bunker meeting was struck earlier this year. Ahead of an April meeting in Islamabad with US Vice President JD Vance, Iran sought and received security guarantees through Pakistani and Qatari channels. Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian delegation’s aircraft to and from the talks. On the return flight, Iranian forces alerted Ghalibaf’s plane that Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace from the western border with Iraq, according to Iranian and US officials. The aircraft made an emergency landing in Mashhad, and the delegation completed the journey to Tehran by road.

The episode exposes a fundamental divergence in war aims between the two allies. Israeli officials, as reported by American media, remained sceptical of an early ceasefire and viewed the negotiators as legitimate targets during the intensive phase of the conflict, which began on 28 February with strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior figures. A Pakistani official told Reuters that Islamabad had warned Washington that eliminating Araghchi or Ghalibaf would leave “no one else to talk to,” prompting the US to urge Israeli restraint. The ceasefire has since been extended indefinitely, and a memorandum of understanding signed in June provides a 60-day framework for a final peace agreement. Further talks are expected in Doha later this month, though the underlying tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv over the diplomatic track remain unresolved.