Axios: Trump Contacted Iranian Revolutionary Guard via Kurdish Channel
Axios reports exclusively that during negotiations with Iran to end the war, the Trump administration, unable to confirm whether the Iranian representatives were authorized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), established a secret backchannel to directly contact the IRGC leadership through Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani.
In mid-May 2026, then-Director of National Intelligence Tursi Gabard, with the approval of Trump and Vice President Vance, called Barzani to request that he contact IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi to confirm their position on the negotiations.
Barzani utilized his connections and trust in Iran to arrange for IRGC officials to bring a secure phone to his office in Erbil on May 14, facilitating a secure call with Vahidi, who expressed full support for the negotiating representatives and hoped to resolve the crisis through negotiations.
The Trump administration then proposed that Barzani host high-level secret talks between the U.S. and Iran in Erbil, but the Iranian side rejected this due to concerns over Israeli intelligence assets and assassination risks in Kurdistan, and the talks did not materialize.
Both sides had reached a memorandum of understanding, but it quickly collapsed. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar are still relaying messages, but progress is limited. Barzani has recently approached the White House again to offer assistance in restarting negotiations.
At the market mechanism level, both sides are using trusted third-party intermediaries to bypass formal channels to convey their positions, with funds and diplomatic resources flowing to regional intermediaries that have cross-camp trust. Event-driven intelligence and mediation networks are active, while formal negotiating representatives are under pressure due to uncertainties regarding actual decision-making authority.
Supplementary data indicates that following the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader, the IRGC has significantly strengthened its control over national security and diplomatic decision-making authority.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The Trump team attempted multiple times during the second term to contact Iranian hardliners through unconventional intermediaries, with previous attempts through Turkey and Egypt. The choice of Barzani this time is due to his simultaneous trust from both the U.S. and the IRGC. Historical behavior shows that the U.S. prioritizes confirming the actual power holders rather than just the surface negotiating representatives.
In terms of capital pathways, the White House utilized intelligence systems and regional ally resources to establish direct channels, motivated by the need to bypass Iranian civilian negotiators suspected of lacking real power, strategically ensuring that any agreements could be genuinely executed by the IRGC, thereby reducing the risk of military escalation.
Similar cases can be seen in past U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations involving multilateral intermediaries and the current roles of traditional mediators like Qatar and Oman in Middle Eastern conflicts. The current U.S.-Iran interactions are transitioning from formal diplomacy to direct probing of power centers.
Structural judgment indicates regulatory changes: the war has severely damaged Iran's traditional political hierarchy, making the IRGC the actual decision-making core, which mechanistically forces external negotiators to verify power ownership, leading to a decline in the effectiveness of formal diplomatic channels, while intermediary networks and encrypted direct communication become the new norm.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Power in whose hands is more important than nominal representatives.
- Trusted intermediaries are hard currency in crises.
- When formal channels fail, secret pathways dictate the pace.