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Iran Conflict 2026
12JUN

Ghalibaf says Iran will not fold

2 min read
09:18UTC

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, listed US breaches on X on 8 July and wrote 'we don't fold', the first senior official to call the memorandum violated on the record.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran's negotiator has declared the memorandum violated, though the parliament he leads never ratified it.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament and its chief negotiator, posted on X on Wednesday 8 July listing what he called US breaches of the memorandum: interference with Iran's Hormuz arrangements, threats of further strikes, reinstated oil sanctions and attacks on southern Iran. 'We don't fold,' he wrote, declaring an end to what he called an era of bullying and extortion 1. He is the first named senior official, beyond the foreign ministry spokesman, to declare the memorandum violated on the record, and his statement lands days after Donald Trump called the deal over .

What Ghalibaf calls violated the Majlis never ratified. Iran's parliament was never asked to vote the Islamabad memorandum through as a treaty, which is why hardline MPs Abootorabi and Nabavian are threatening an Article 77 constitutional complaint rather than a withdrawal motion 2. The complaint would target the government for binding Iran to a text parliament never approved. The escalation runs through the executive and through public statements, not the parliamentary record.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is the speaker of Iran's parliament (the Majlis) and was Iran's lead negotiator on the ceasefire deal with the US, known as the Islamabad memorandum. He has now said publicly that the US broke that deal and that Iran will not back down. Separately, two hardline members of parliament are threatening to use a constitutional rule, Article 77, to argue the deal was never legally binding in the first place because parliament itself never voted on it. Together, these moves suggest Iran's political establishment is hardening its position, alongside its military.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Article 77 of Iran's constitution requires the Majlis to ratify international treaties; the Islamabad memorandum was signed as an executive-level understanding, not a treaty, leaving hardline MPs Abootorabi and Nabavian a genuine constitutional lever to argue it never bound Iran domestically.

The succession crisis compounds the legal gap: with Mojtaba Khamenei absent from public view since his father's funeral and reportedly injured, no figure with unquestioned authority has stepped in to overrule Ghalibaf's reading of the memorandum, leaving the Majlis speaker's interpretation effectively unchallenged.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    If the Article 77 complaint advances, it gives Iran's negotiators formal domestic cover to abandon the memorandum's terms without appearing to break faith with Washington unilaterally.

First Reported In

Update #150 · Second US strike wave, first heavy toll

bne IntelliNews· 9 Jul 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
Ghalibaf says Iran will not fold
With its chief negotiator now calling the memorandum violated, Tehran has taken its hardest public line since June, even though parliament never ratified the deal.
Different Perspectives
Hormuz shipping and insurance market
Kpler, Lloyd's List and S&P Global each independently put Strait of Hormuz transits at a seventh to a sixth of pre-war levels, against CENTCOM's own position that the strait remains open for transit. War-risk premiums rose from 0.25% to 3-10% of hull value in mid-July and have held steady since.
Pakistan (with China)
Pakistan (with China)
Iran's interior minister met Pakistan's army chief in Islamabad on 25 July, his second visit in ten days, with China separately pushing the same track; Islamabad's stated precondition, a halt to Gulf attacks, broke within hours when the Houthis struck Yanbu and Jazan. The channel inherits Baghdad's opening without yet fixing what broke it.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia absorbed Houthi strikes on Aramco-linked sites at Jazan and Yanbu on 25 July without confirming them, while holding a 30-year civil nuclear agreement Trump made conditional on joining the Abraham Accords two days after signing it. Riyadh is fighting on one front while being asked to concede on another.
Iran (state security leadership)
Iran (state security leadership)
Iran's security chief said strikes continue until the enemy's "total surrender", and no IRNA, Tasnim or Fars report carries any stand-down language to match Washington's pause. Tehran reads the halt as "strategic decision-making fatigue", not a restraint it needs to reciprocate.
Washington (Pentagon and White House)
Washington (Pentagon and White House)
A Defense Department source called the bombing halt "on a hold", Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell insisted the US "retains a deep arsenal of capabilities", and the White House credited "successful sanctions" and thirteen days of strikes for the same pause. Three explanations from one government suggest none of them is the whole one.
Oil traders
Oil traders
Sent Brent down 2.29 per cent to $98.38 a barrel on reports that mediation was reviving, moving the price on CENTCOM's quiet night rather than on Trump's same-day promise of a bigger operation with no deadline attached.