ALBAWABA - According to the U.S. news site Axios, a secret diplomacy route between former President Donald Trump and Iranian officials shut down this week when Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei became unavailable. This led to rumors that Khamenei might have been killed or disappeared.
At the same time that Israel's war on Iran was getting worse, three U.S. officials and a source familiar with the situation said that Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were quietly trying to set up a high-level meeting between American and Iranian leaders in Istanbul.
According to the story from Axios, Trump wanted to make a straight agreement with Tehran so badly that he offered to go to the meeting himself if it would help stop the military from escalation and seal the nuclear deal.
In the beginning, Erdoğan called Trump on Monday, while the former president was in Canada for the G7 meeting. During the call, Erdoğan suggested that the next day there be a secret foreign meeting in Istanbul. Trump agreed, and he was ready to send Vice President J.D. Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff. If needed, he was even willing to go himself to meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The story says that Erdoğan and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Pezeshkian and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi about the idea. But the Iranian group said they couldn't get in touch with Khamenei because he was supposedly hiding because he was afraid of an Israeli plot to kill him. So, the talks that were supposed to happen were called off.
Is Khamenei no longer alive?
The sudden absence of Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, at one of the most important times in recent years in world politics has brought up important questions. Was Khamenei killed in a secret operation? Did he hide and is he still alive?
Even though there is no proof that he is dead, U.S. and Turkish sources say that he stopped communicating with his close friends and family in the days after the U.S. and Israeli strikes. Officials in Iran are still mum, which adds to the rumors. His official position is still unknown for now, but his disappearance has already broken down important diplomacy lines and made people more afraid of a bigger war.
