Others in the opposition camp expressed their discomfort with Karroubi’s remarks and said they feared Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami were trying to reach a back-door deal with the conservative establishment. The reformist Irandokht magazine published parts of a letter that was allegedly written by Khatami to the Supreme Leader. According to Irandokht, Khatami wrote that he recognized Ahmadinejad as the president of the Islamic Republic and complained about the radicals on both sides of the conflict.

Today, Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, said in an interview with Rooz Online that she will neither recognize Ahmadinejad as president nor will she make any deals behind closed doors, suggesting that Karroubi might have made a deal with the conservatives prior to making his widely-publicized remarks.

Pro-government Kayhan dedicated its main headline to Karroubi’s remarks and wrote in bold, “The street was a dead end. Those involved in the sedition backpedaled.” Kayhan reported that members of the opposition who spoke at the Mardomsalari Party’s annual meeting, where Karroubi made his controversial remarks, tried to distance themselves from the events of the past seven months. Kayhan was suggesting that opposition leaders were trying to ask the government to excuse them for their activities with the opposition. Kayhan went further by saying that Karroubi’s remarks were the continuation of backpedaling by Hashemi-Rafsanjani and Mir Hossein Moussavi, both of whom have given speeches and issued statements in the past month, refusing to call the Ahmadinejad administration illegitimate.

Today, in a meeting with visitors from the Mazandaran province, Supreme Leader Khamenei said that he will not budge. He said, “Everyone should know that we will not make concessions [or pay ransom] neither on behalf of the Iranian people nor on my own.” This seems to be a public rejection of Khatami’s letter written to Khamenei asking for a rapprochement to ease Iran’s tense environment.