How Trump bypassed Iran's negotiators and used Kurdistan's Barzani to contact IRGC

The Trump administration sought an unconventional approach to end the war with Iran by involving Iraq's Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani as a backchannel to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This bypass allowed Washington to circumvent Iran's official negotiators, such as parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who faced doubts about their authority to speak for the IRGC.

The concerns arose in mid-May when US negotiators questioned whether Iran's negotiating team had the backing of the IRGC, which had grown stronger in national security and foreign policy decisions. With no certainty over the official negotiators' backing, the administration turned to Barzani, a trusted intermediary with strong ties to both US and Iranian leaders.

Barzani, fluent in Farsi and having personal relationships with senior Iranian officials, agreed to help and reached out to the IRGC commander, Gen Ahmad Vahidi. On May 14, an IRGC official met with Barzani, who asked about the alignment of the IRGC with the official negotiators. Vahidi confirmed support for the negotiations and expressed a preference for solving the crisis through talks.

Subsequently, the White House proposed secret talks between senior US and Iranian negotiators in Erbil, but the proposal was never realized due to Iranian concerns about the security of its officials in the region.