--- title: "U.S. Officials Believed Israel Was Plotting to Kill Iran's Nuclear Negotiators, Report Says" description: "The Trump administration indirectly warned Iran this spring that some U.S. officials suspected Israel was preparing to assassinate two of Tehran's top nuclear negotiators, according to a New York Times report that was corroborated by The Washington Post and CNN. Israel's government has dismissed the account as \"fake news,\" and the core claim rests on unnamed U.S. officials." category: "U.S." category_url: https://herald.la/category/us author: "Mei-Lin Tang" published: 2026-07-03T17:38:27.000Z updated: 2026-07-03T17:38:27.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/u-s-officials-believed-israel-was-plotting-to-kill-iran-s-nuclear-negotiators-re tags: ["Israel", "Iran", "diplomacy", "national security", "Middle East"] --- # U.S. Officials Believed Israel Was Plotting to Kill Iran's Nuclear Negotiators, Report Says The Trump administration indirectly warned Iran this spring that some U.S. officials suspected Israel was preparing to assassinate two of Tehran's top nuclear negotiators, according to a New York Times report that was corroborated by The Washington Post and CNN. Israel's government has dismissed the account as "fake news," and the core claim rests on unnamed U.S. officials. A striking claim emerged this week about the diplomacy that ended this spring's fighting between Israel and Iran: that as talks got under way, some in Washington feared their Israeli allies were about to kill the very people Tehran had sent to negotiate. ## What was reported Some U.S. officials believed Israel was preparing to assassinate Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and the speaker of its parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — the two men leading Iran's nuclear talks with Washington — in the weeks after an April 8 ceasefire, [The Washington Post reported](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/02/us-warned-iran-about-israels-aims-assassinate-leaders/), matching an account first published by The New York Times and attributed to current and former U.S. officials. The concern, according to the reporting, was that Israel viewed the negotiators as legitimate targets precisely because Tehran had chosen them to lead the diplomacy. [CNN, which also confirmed the broad account](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/03/politics/assassination-warning-us-israel-iran), added an important limit: it reported there were "no immediate indications" that U.S. intelligence had identified a specific, concrete plot. That caveat matters, and it should temper how far the allegation is pushed. ## The warning, and a diverted plane Because Washington and Tehran have no direct diplomatic channel, U.S. officials asked intermediaries in the region to pass Iran a warning that its negotiators might be targeted, the reporting said, out of fear that any such strike would collapse the talks and reignite the war. The most concrete episode described is from April 12, when Ghalibaf flew to Islamabad for a meeting and, on the return leg, was told by Iranian security that Israel might strike his aircraft. The plane made an emergency landing in the Iranian city of Mashhad, and the delegation completed the journey to Tehran overland. The details of that flight could not be independently verified beyond the accounts in the reporting. ## Denials and confirmations The responses split predictably. Iran's foreign minister, Araghchi, appeared to confirm the broad outline in an interview on Iranian state television, [Euronews reported](https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/03/iran-fm-confirms-reports-israel-planned-to-target-tehrans-negotiators), framing his decision to keep traveling as an act of defiance. Israel flatly rejected the story: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office called the report "fake news" and "a complete fabrication," [according to The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/fake-news-pmo-denies-nyt-report-us-worried-israel-would-kill-irans-negotiators/). No U.S. official has confirmed the account on the record. ## How to read it The reporting is well-sourced — three major American outlets independently, plus an apparent confirmation from the Iranian side — but the central charge remains an assertion attributed to anonymous officials and denied by Israel, not an established fact, and even the outlets that confirmed it caution against assuming a firm operational plot existed. What is not in dispute is the fragility of the moment it describes: a ceasefire so brittle that Washington believed a single strike could have unraveled it, and felt compelled to warn an adversary to protect a negotiation with its own ally as the wild card. ## Sources - [US warned Iran about Israel's aims to assassinate leaders](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/02/us-warned-iran-about-israels-aims-assassinate-leaders/) - [US officials attempted to warn Iran of fears that Israel would assassinate mediators](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/03/politics/assassination-warning-us-israel-iran) - [Iran FM confirms reports Israel planned to target Tehran's negotiators](https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/03/iran-fm-confirms-reports-israel-planned-to-target-tehrans-negotiators) - ['Fake news': PMO denies NYT report US worried Israel would kill Iran's negotiators](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/fake-news-pmo-denies-nyt-report-us-worried-israel-would-kill-irans-negotiators/)