Washington's secret contacts with the Iranian opposition: Vitkoff meets with Reza Pahlavi

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff held a secret meeting with exiled Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, the son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This was reported on 13 January by the American media outlet Axios, citing a senior US official, according to DW.

According to journalists, this is the first contact of this level between the Donald Trump administration and the Iranian opposition since the start of mass protests in late December 2025. Over the past two weeks, Pahlavi has been actively appearing on US TV channels and publicly calling on Washington to support the protesters.

Polls by the Dutch think tank GAMAAN show that about a third of Iranian citizens support Pahlavi, while about a third are opposed to him. the 65-year-old politician, who has been living in the United States for almost half a century, has positioned himself as a possible transitional leader in the event of the fall of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime and is in favour of a national referendum on the future form of government.

At the same time, the White House national security team discussed options for responding to the situation in Iran on 13 January. According to Axios, no decisions on military action have been made, and the administration is considering primarily non-kinetic measures to support the protests. Trump himself has previously publicly called on Iranians to continue their protests and said that help was on the way, without elaborating.

Anti-government protests in Iran have been going on since 28 December 2025. They have spread to more than 60 cities in 25 provinces and began as a reaction to the financial crisis and currency devaluation, but quickly turned political. According to the human rights organisation Iran Human Rights, at least 734 people have been killed in the protests as of mid-January, while other human rights sources report more than 2,000 confirmed deaths.

Source and photo by DW.

Iran, Pahlavi, USA, Witkoff