Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has pledged to address mounting economic grievances in the country, saying his government is “ready to listen” to protesters while urging them to prevent “rioters” and “terrorist elements” from wreaking havoc,
Al Jazeera reports.
Pezeshkian spoke about the unrest in an interview on state television on Sunday, as the demonstrations, which began when merchants at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar closed their shops over the Iranian rial’s sharp depreciation, entered a third week.
The Iranian president told the IRIB broadcaster that Israel and the United States were masterminding the destabilisation in the country, saying that “the same people that struck this country” during Israel’s 12-day war in June were “trying to escalate these unrests with regard to the economic discussion”.
“They have trained some people inside and outside the country; they have bought in some terrorists from outside,” Pezeshkian said, claiming the perpetrators had attacked a bazaar in the city of Rasht and set “mosques on fire”.
The Iranian president said the government had heard the shopkeepers’ concerns and is going to solve their problems “by any means necessary”. But he urged the public not to allow “rioters” to disrupt the country.
“Rioters are not protesting people. We hear the protesters and have made every effort to solve their problems,” he said.
The protests, which have evolved from economic grievances into broader antigovernment demonstrations, are the largest in Iran since the 2022-2023 movement spurred by the custodial death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women.
