TEHRAN, Iran — During the past two decades, the Kayhan newspaper has been functioning as the unofficial tribune of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Its editor-in-chief, hard-line ideologue Hossein Shariatmadari, 68, is a major media personality. First appointed as the representative of the supreme leader at Kayhan in January 1993, he is notorious for his radical anti-Reformist stance in the late 1990s, harsh campaigning against the Green Movement in 2009 and unforgiving criticism of the nuclear negotiators since 2013.

Over the past two months, however, there have been clear indications that the supreme leader and senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials are no longer interested in seeing Shariatmadari attributing his own radical views to Khamenei.

On Sept. 1, the Office of the Supreme Leader published a statement on Khamenei’s position on Iran’s nuclear negotiations with six world powers. It said the latter was “openly and clearly” communicated in Khamenei’s meeting with students of Imam Hussein University on April 9 and further repeated in meetings with top officials during the holy month of Ramadan and subsequently on Eid al-Fitr. At the end of the statement, it was again emphasized that “anything else attributed to the supreme leader is false.”

As far as the media and public opinion in Iran are concerned, this statement was a direct answer to Shariatmadari’s Aug. 14 editorial, “The Only Option on the Table.” Shariatmadari had made references to Khamenei’s Eid al-Fitr speech in this piece and claimed, “We can confidently say that he is not at all satisfied with the text of the agreement.” Since Khamenei had not yet expressed any opinion on the July 14 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at that time, Shariatmadari’s editorial was widely interpreted as the supreme leader’s unofficial stance.