Sons of Iran's ex-judiciary official jailed for over 25 years in corruption scandal

“We desire friendly relations with the countries of the region and the world, and we are striving to establish peace and security both inside and outside the country,” he said on Thursday during his trip to North Khorasan province.

In a possible bid to publicly align with Khamenei's decades-long policy of arming militias around the region and accelerating the country's nuclear program, he added that Iran's actions were a matter of self-defense.

“We do not intend to invade other countries' territories, nor will we allow anyone to encroach upon our borders or rights. Preserving the integrity of the country is a fundamental principle for us, but at the same time, our focus is on peace and security," he said.

Iran's militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have in recent months suffered huge blows.

Pezeshkian's comments also follow statements in recent days from the new Sunni Islamist leaders of Syria, who have warned Iran to stay out of the country's internal affairs since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran had been a heavy presence in the country since 2011, with military bases and personnel across Syria.

Pezeshkian’s call for diplomacy stands in contrast to the Supreme Leader’s persistent rejection of normalization with the West and Israel, suggesting that Iran’s pursuit of peace may remain contingent upon maintaining its ideological and geopolitical conflicts.

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In his speech, Pezeshkian also addressed critical domestic issues, acknowledging the impact of mismanagement on the country’s energy crisis.

“Today, we have the largest oil and gas reserves, but consuming three or four times more than Europe has caused us a crisis,” he said, before promising to address the inefficiencies that have led to power and gas shortages.

The government's long-standing narrative, which blames the energy crisis on the people's excessive consumption, has become increasingly ineffective in the face of rising public frustration.

Calls on citizens to conserve energy have become a familiar refrain, yet many Iranians are growing skeptical of these appeals, viewing them as a justification for government inaction rather than a genuine solution.

Iran's energy crisis has deepened in this year, marked by frequent power outages and gas shortages. The country, which holds some of the largest reserves of oil and natural gas in the world, has struggled with inefficient energy consumption, outdated infrastructure, and mismanagement.

“The resilient youth and people of Syria will not remain silent in the face of foreign occupation, external aggression, and the internal authoritarianism of a single group. Within less than a year, they will revive resistance in Syria in a new form,” Mohsen Rezaei, a member of Iran’s Expediency Council, wrote on his X account.

Rezaei's comments come amid a regional reconfiguration and shifting power dynamics in Syria following the fall of the Bashar Assad government. Earlier this week, Syria’s new foreign minister warned Iran to refrain from "spreading chaos" in the country after a call by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for Syrian youth to rise up against the country's new Sunni Islamist leaders.

Cement production requires continuous operation of kilns, 24 hours a day. Even short power or gas outages can halt the process, especially the production of clinker, a vital component of cement.

The secretary of the Cement Industry Employers Association, Ali Akbar Alvandian, told ILNA news agency on Thursday that gas supplies to cement factories have been increasingly restricted since October, when the rolling blackouts started.

Many factories now have no gas supply at all, and some, like Tehran Cement, are barred from using mazut (a pollutant-heavy high-sulfur fuel oil) as an alternative due to their proximity to urban areas and associated pollution concerns. This has led to complete shutdowns at these facilities.

The shutdowns are impacting major cement producers across the country, including Shomal (North) Cement, Firuzkuh Cement, and Abik Cement, the latter of which has both of its kilns out of operation.

The widespread nature of these closures raises concerns about potential shortages and price increases in the construction sector and other industries that rely on cement, an industry which the International Cement Review this year said had seen a year on year growth of 24 percent in spite of the country's economic collapse.

Iran’s energy infrastructure is grappling with one of its most challenging winters. Facing a critical natural gas, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration has prioritized avoiding the widespread burning of mazut, as a substitute at major power plants in several cities such as Arak, Isfahan, and Karaj.

To mitigate mazut emissions, the government ordered planned blackouts, with power cuts announced across several provinces. This measure has been presented as an environmental alternative to mazut, with officials citing health concerns associated with the fuel’s toxic emissions.

The lifting of Google Play restrictions changes little, as Iranians in the country remain unable to make purchases on the platform due to international banking limitations imposed by both the Iranian government and US sanctions.

Mehr News Agency, which published portions of the 32-point plan, quoted social media users stating that lifting the ban on WhatsApp and Google Play does little to help thousands of Iranian businesses operating on Instagram and Telegram, which remain inaccessible without the use of filter-breakers, otherwise known as circumvention software. The government’s ultimate plan is to establish more monitoring of users and controlled Internet access.

Hundreds of social media users noted that the declaration by the government did not change anything about its censorship of the Internet as although people can use WhatsApp for messaging, for all other platforms they still need to use VPNs to circumvent the censorship.

Iran began aggressively blocking websites in early 2,000s, even before the rise of social media, citing political and religious reasons. The beginning of blocking websites in Iran dates to 1998 and the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami. With the increased use of home internet in Iran, Ali Khamenei issued the "General Policies about Computer and Information Networks," which was subsequently implemented by the government with the objective of filtering of the Internet and overseeing the activities of Internet service providers (ISPs).

For over two decades, most independent Iranian news and political websites have remained inaccessible. Starting in 2009, Western social media platforms, including Facebook, were also blocked. In response, most Iranians turned to circumvention tools, such as VPNs, to bypass digital censorship.

In 2014, Hassan Rouhani's government launched the "Intelligent Internet Filtering" plan, further restricting Iranians' access to the Internet. After the 2017-2018 protests, Telegram and Instagram were also blocked. During the nationwide internet shutdown in the November 2019 protests, the government escalated its efforts to block websites and applications, aiming to disrupt protest organization, and hinder the mobilization of demonstrators.

Meanwhile, as some pro-government reformist newspapers such as Arman Melli ran headlines like "The filtering has been broken," others, including the reformist daily Etemad, emphasized that this is merely "a first step in a gradual move to lift the filtering" and urged the nation to "wait for the next step."

According to the plan, in the "next step" platforms such as YouTube might be made accessible through an added local layer or shelf that checks the users' identity and monitors what they upload and download.

Conservative newspapers, including Jam-e Jam, which is affiliated with Iran's state television, warned the government that cyberspace must be "governed" with stricter controls.

Prominent economic journalist Maryam Shokrani criticized the move on X, writing: "Are you kidding the people? We always need foreign filter-breakers to access most applications, and then have to turn them off to use Iranian banking and other apps. What has changed now…?"

Akbar Montajabi the editor-in-chief of centrist daily Sazandegi, who has over 11,900 followers, wrote on the same platform: "What has been done is good but insufficient as a first step." He advised the government: "Do not worry about lifting the filtering. Worry about losing the people's trust and your social capital."

Internet security expert Amir Nazemi, who has over 24,000 followers, analyzed the development from a political perspective. Writing on X, he said: "Filtering, slowing down Internet speeds, and cutting off access (as seen during the 2019 protests and afterward) were all tactics implemented with the Supreme Leader's approval. His signature remains on the ratification by the Supreme Council of National Security. With yesterday's decision, Mr. Khamenei has, for the first time, reversed one of his domestic political decisions. This is unprecedented and the only aspect of this development that carries real news value."

Meanwhile, Filterbaan, an account with around 12,000 followers which advocates digital and internet access rights in Iran explained that what has been already done in the first of a three-step plan, and wrote that the plan is not meant to facilitate Internet access. It is rather meant to make it even harder based on the 32-point plan drawn by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.

Macroeconomist Morteza Afqah told Tehran’s Khabar Online news website on Wednesday that “If no agreement is reached, the likelihood of reinstating the ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran is high.

"Inflation could surpass 40% by the end of the year. Without the lifting of sanctions, the country appears incapable of managing the economy sustainably.”

Iran’s currency, the rial, has depreciated nearly 20-fold since 2018, when President Donald Trump first imposed "maximum pressure" sanctions on the country. Since September alone, the rial has lost an additional 30% of its value.

The current annual inflation rate is unclear, but official figures have hovered around 40% since 2019, with prices for food and other essentials rising at an even faster pace.

The rial was trading at nearly 800,000 per US dollar on Wednesday and over one million per British pound.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s administrative chief cleric Mohammad Mohammadi Golpaygani conceded on Wednesday that “We are not in a normal situation in the country. For years, we have been burdened by sanctions, facing difficulties in exporting oil.”

However, he added, “In these circumstances, the nation's power comes with its own challenges. After all, being a Muslim nation has its costs and is not something achieved easily.”

Afqah, in turn, expressed deep pessimism about the economy overall, seeing no reason to be optimistic.

"The short- and even medium-term outlook for our country’s economy is not promising. There isn’t much hopeful news or any so-called good news to cling to. Each individual economic and even non-economic factor is structured in a way that leads to rising costs, higher inflation, and a decline in economic growth rates," he said.

The pressure on Iran’s Islamic government is not just economic but also geopolitical, after its key non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah were seriously weakened by Israeli blows earlier this year, followed by the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Iran had invested tens of billions of dollars in keeping Assad in power against his domestic opponents, but in a matter of days, the armed opposition swept through the country, capturing Damascus and deposing the long-serving authoritarian president, who fled to Russia.

The incoming Trump administration has signaled that it is inclined to increase the pressure, not just to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program, but more likely to inhibit its power projections throughout the Middle East.