Ahmadinejad's Statement on His 'Differences with Leadership' Regarding Negotiations with the U.S.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former President of Iran, announced that he opposed the direct negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in Oman, which took place in the final years of his presidency with the permission of the Supreme Leader. In a statement published on his website, Ahmadinejad emphasized that he had opposed the negotiations in a meeting attended by senior officials and had requested that the negotiations be postponed for six months. According to Ahmadinejad, he believed that by conducting these negotiations, the U.S. would think the sanctions were effective. The former president wrote that he had requested six months to control the effects of the sanctions through 'the implementation of several economic emergency programs and strengthening the economic power of the people, so that negotiations could be conducted on equal terms.' He added, 'I even stated that I am willing to put my family as hostages and guarantees that if the plans failed, my family and I should be executed.' Previously, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization during Hassan Rouhani's presidency and foreign minister during Ahmadinejad's presidency, had reported that Iran and the U.S. had negotiated several times at the deputy foreign minister level in Oman during the final years of Ahmadinejad's presidency. He stated that these negotiations were conducted with the permission of the Supreme Leader, and Ayatollah Khamenei had ordered that discussions be limited to the nuclear issue. The former foreign minister of Iran recently also stated that Saeed Jalili, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opposed these negotiations. Salehi mentioned that Ahmadinejad had told him, 'This is dangerous, and you might fall.' Salehi also stated in an interview with NBC News that if these secret talks had not taken place, the nuclear agreement would not have been reached. However, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former head of the Expediency Council of Iran, stated that during those negotiations, the U.S. was unwilling to give concessions to Iran, and the talks were 'fruitless and ended.' The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic also stated in July 2015 that the issue of negotiations between Iran and the U.S. 'pertains to the previous administration and relates to sending intermediaries to Tehran to request negotiations.' Ahmadinejad's remarks about opposing the Oman negotiations come at a time when some former officials of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, including Hossein Mousavian, have spoken of several attempts by Ahmadinejad for direct negotiations with the U.S. In his statement, Ahmadinejad also mentioned that after the acceptance of the Vienna nuclear agreement, 'over $30 billion worth of nuclear facilities were halted or taken out of operation.' He also called for 'all negotiations and agreements' with foreign countries to be 'transparently and documentarily shared with the people, and the nation should be informed of all matters.' Ahmadinejad's statements come at a time when Mohammad Saidi, former deputy of the Atomic Energy Organization, announced in March 2015 that the cost of Iran's nuclear program was less than $2 billion. Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, stated that the cost of Iran's nuclear program in the past 10 years was equivalent to the construction of two large dams. The cost of building a large dam in Iran is about 3 trillion tomans. So far, Iranian officials have not provided an exact figure regarding the cost of Iran's nuclear program, and even Ahmad Shirzad, a representative from Isfahan in the sixth parliament, had previously stated that the costs of the nuclear program were not transparent and that the parliament was not aware of these expenses. Critics of Iran's nuclear program estimate the cost of this program to be dozens of times higher than this figure.