RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 2 sourcesMasoud Pezeshkian makes cryptic comment in state television interview
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Interaction with Iran ’s supreme leader , Mojtaba Khamenei, is currently “very difficult”, Iran’s president has said.
Khamenei, 56, has not been seen in public since assuming the role after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in February in a joint US-Israeli air strike.
His absence from visibility has prompted widespread speculation about the state of his health.
President Masoud Pezeshkian made the cryptic comment in an interview on state television but gave no further detail and it was not clear what he meant by “interaction”.
Top Iranian officials told the New York Times earlier this year that the new supreme leader had been gravely wounded but that he was mentally in good health.
According to the report, his face and lips were badly burnt, making speech difficult, but one of his hands was operated on and he was gradually regaining function.
Khamenei reportedly required plastic surgery to his face and was awaiting a new prosthetic leg.
In conflicting reports in May, Iran said Khamenei was suffering from a “small scratch” behind his ear after initial reports that he suffered life-altering injuries in US-Israeli attacks.
But the regime said he was otherwise in “full health” despite injuries to his kneecap and back.
The president said earlier that Tehran would support any initiative or decision by Palestinian leaders in indirect talks between militant group Hamas and Israel, according to state media.
A report by an Iranian media site on Monday said that Khamenei had warned Pezeshkian that he (Khamenei) would accept the Iranian president's resignation if he resubmitted it.
In May, Pezeshkian was reported to have argued that he could no longer fulfil his constitutional responsibilities and had asked to step down immediately.
The Islamic regime has not released any videos or audio of the supreme leader.
One Iranian media report claimed it was feared this could reveal Khamenei's whereabouts and condition.
Khamenei, considered a hardline conservative cleric with links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is instructed by some of Iran’s most powerful scholars in Qom, where he trained to be a cleric.
During the Iran-Iraq war, he served in the Iranian military between 1987 and 1988.
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