WASHINGTON, August 16. /TASS/. The Washington administration maintained contacts with the leadership of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, or elite units of the armed forces) through the head of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, who has now offered the United States his assistance in negotiations to resolve the conflict, Axios said, citing its sources.

According to the sources, the White House in May contacted Barzani, who enjoys the trust of both the United States and the IRGC. He conveyed messages from the US to the then IRGC commander, General Ahmad Vahidi, who told the Iraqi Kurdistan head that the IRGC supported the Iranian negotiators’ stance, which Washington had doubts about. Barzani conveyed this message to the White House and after that, according to the Axios sources, the US administration came out with a new proposal. The United States wanted Barzani to organize closed-door bilateral settlement talks in Iraqi Kurdistan’s administrative center, the city of Erbil. He conveyed this message to Tehran, which did not rule out this possibility but expressed concern about security issues due to Israeli intelligence. The meeting in Erbil was never held.

The United States and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28. In June, Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding envisaging an immediate ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon. However, the United States resumed large-scale attacks on Iran overnight to July 8, having accused it of breaching the existing agreements in what concerned the Strait of Hormuz. On August 2, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he had agreed to cancel a planned major strike on Iran to facilitate a deal with Tehran. According to the US leader, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked Washington to refrain from attacking because the parties had agreed on the outlines of a future accord. On August 6, the Al Arabiya television channel reported, citing sources, that Iran and Oman had reached understanding about key paraments of an agreement of resuming navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the TV channel, the 60-day agreement is geared to get out of the dead-end and launch technical talks.