Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on Iran’s nuclear program, made headlines in the Western and Iranian media when he announced that he would agree to a “good” nuclear deal. Ayatollah Khamenei has always supported the negotiation process in principle, although he has tended to warn that he is not optimistic about working with the United States. But his Feb. 8 speech in front of air force personnel appeared to contain some of his most optimistic statements so far in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1).

As usual, when the supreme leader makes headline-grabbing comments, Iranian officials and media rushed to interpret him through the lens of their particular biases.

Kayhan newspaper, whose editor is chosen by the supreme leader’s office, omitted the part of the speech in which Ayatollah Khamenei discussed the concessions Iran has made up to this point in the two interim deals between Iran and P5+1. The Kayhan article, which presented most of the speech and chose as its headline Khamenei’s comment that Iran wants a one-time comprehensive deal, omitted the following lines:

“The Iranian side has done some of the things to get closer to an agreement. It has done numerous things. It has suspended the expansion and growth of its enrichment machines. The production of uranium at 20% … was suspended, [as] the requirement of the negotiations was that this be suspended. The Arak factory is suspended for now. Fordow has been suspended for now.”