Iran's government information council accused state broadcaster IRIB of censoring part of a speech by President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a statement published on July 24.

The public attack marks an unusual escalation of a factional fight over how Iran's negotiations with Washington are presented, at a point when Tehran's memorandum with the US has collapsed and Pezeshkian has been heckled over his association with it. IRIB is controlled by the office of the supreme leader rather than the government.

The council said IRIB removed a section of Pezeshkian's address at a national industry and mining event in which he referred to permission granted by Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader killed in a US-Israeli strike on February 28, for negotiations to proceed.

It listed further instances: a partial broadcast of an interview with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, later shown in full, and the cutting of remarks by the judiciary chief supporting the president. The council also said IRIB had not broadcast Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's interviews with foreign media during the fighting.

"The main question is what objectives IRIB officials are pursuing in their selective treatment of the positions of the heads of the branches of the Islamic Republic," the statement said, arguing that the omissions showed managers selecting material according to their own political preferences and cutting anything outside their group's views, including from a branch head or the foreign minister.

The council said the conduct followed a message from Mojtaba Khamenei on July 18 identifying unity among the public and officials as the most fundamental requirement of the period. It described the broadcaster's actions as divisive behaviour by a political faction within IRIB.

Allowing several managers to apply their own political judgement to coverage of the Supreme National Security Council chairman and to edit the foreign minister's remarks during a contest over narrative demonstrated an absence of national and security perspective in the organisation's management, the council said.

It warned that persisting with the approach could give adversaries an opening to divide the branches of government from the public, with irreparable consequences for national security.

Mojtaba Khamenei was proclaimed supreme leader in March and has not appeared in public since, issuing statements in writing.