Juan Cole reports this today.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s clerical leader, gave a speech on Sunday in which he said he supports an agreement with the West on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program that is practical and can be achieved, but added, “I will not accept a bad deal."
“I concur with the continuation and progress of the negotiations and the reaching of a good agreement. And the Iranian nation is also with any agreement that is consistent with its honor and respect. It is not opposed.”
«من با ادامه و پیشرفت مذاکرات و رسیدن به توافق خوب موافقم و قطعاً ملت ایران هم با هر توافقی که دربردارنده عزت و احترام او باشد، مخالفتی ندارد.»
He added approvingly of President Rouhani that the president often says that negotiations are a process of two sides finding points in common. “This principle implies that neither side is going to get everything it wants.”
http://www.juancole.com/...
Of course, it's theoretically possible that this is just another Iranian PR statement of the general type issued so often by governments including Israel and the US, but it would be stupidly cynical to assume so in light of other recent facts, such as the cessation of enrichment to 20% and the conversion of much of the existing stockpile of 20%-enriched uranium.
This has to put the pressure on Netanyahu and the American Likudniks at a time when they are on their back foot after Bibi's speech debacle, so I look for a diversionary (PR?) strike from that quarter in the coming days.
Right now the only major US media mention of this is in a WSJ blog and Al-Jazeera America-- all the rest of the coverage is foreign. THE WSJ blog article seems reasonably even-handed, esp. considering the author spent months in solitary at Teheran's Evin Prison in 2007.