[Inside Story of U.S.-Iran Negotiations Exposed: Trump Administration Bypassed Iranian Negotiators to Contact Revolutionary Guard] BlockBeats News, August 16, according to AXIOS citing three informed sources, U.S. negotiators encountered a problem in mid-May when attempting to reach an agreement with Iran to end the conflict: they could not confirm whether the Iranian representatives at the negotiation table truly represented the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As a result, officials from the Trump administration took an unusual approach—bypassing the Iranian negotiators and directly contacting senior officials of the IRGC. The person chosen by the U.S. to handle this secret communication channel was Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Barzani possessed a rare advantage: he was trusted by both the U.S. and the leadership of the IRGC. One major reason for the difficulties in U.S.-Iran negotiations was Washington's inability to determine who truly held decision-making power in Iran. Although the U.S. and Iran ultimately reached a memorandum of understanding, it quickly fell apart.