Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:23We are trying to do what for goods
00:00:26return, what in relation to high prices.
00:00:30Of course, high prices are a real thing. They closed our way.
00:00:33We used to bring it cheaply. We used to bring it through an easy
00:00:37path. Now we have to turn around and bring it through different
00:00:40ways into the country.
00:00:44The ravages of war and sanctions on the body of Iran's worn-out economy.
00:00:48Under naval blockade , can the government cope with the people's
00:00:51livelihood? We ask an
00:00:53economic expert who will pay the cost of continuing the war.
00:00:57Rumors about the possibility of
00:01:00the resignation of Mohammad Bagher Zholghadr, Secretary of the Supreme
00:01:03National Security Council. Pezeshkian says there are differences that we are trying
00:01:07to resolve. We ask a political analyst
00:01:10that, despite the economic bottlenecks that Massoud Pezeshkian
00:01:14enumerated, why do extremists want to continue
00:01:17the war? Washington is looking for a plan
00:01:20for the safe passage of ships through the Strait
00:01:23of Hormuz. Trump's deputy says that he does not
00:01:27trust Iran's promises.
00:01:31Also in tonight's
00:01:41Will the Mecca agreement isolate Iran or bring more
00:01:44stability to the region?
00:01:48Environmental concerns about the closure
00:01:49of the Strait of Hormuz, the accumulation of
00:01:52invasive aquatic species, ships
00:01:56and... threatening the sea systems.
00:01:5960 minutes. Live from BBC in
00:02:22more concerned about the people's livelihood than about the war. He said
00:02:26in a meeting with reporters that the way for goods to enter Iran
00:02:30has been closed and the government does not even have enough
00:02:34resources for importing gasoline.
00:02:37Mr. Pezeshkian said that one cannot chant that "we will fight"
00:02:41and then expect that there will be no news of high prices and
00:02:44shortages in the market. He referred to the resilience of Iran's
00:02:47crisis-ridden economy, which has been hit harder by about 6
00:02:50months of war and tension. In these
00:02:54circumstances, Iran's economic and naval blockade
00:02:57remains in place. The fate of negotiations with
00:03:03Hormuz is still unclear, and Tehran puts
00:03:07new conditions on the table every day. How much more
00:03:10can the Iranian economy fight? If this situation continues,
00:03:14where should the government get money and goods from, and
00:03:18finally, who will pay the cost of continuing the
00:03:30foreign currency from? This is an issue that has been the main
00:03:33concern of the government in Iran for years,
00:03:37and now the naval blockade by the US has dealt another
00:03:40heavy blow to Iran's crisis-ridden economy,
00:03:44which has led to a sharp decrease in foreign exchange
00:03:48income for Iran. It was
00:03:50expected that the recent agreement between Iran and the US would cover part of this budget
00:03:54deficit, but the resumption of the war after the attack on
00:03:58several oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz ruined this
00:04:01opportunity. During the period of temporary lifting of the blockade,
00:04:05Tehran exported a large portion of its floating oil
00:04:08reserves from the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman
00:04:12worth 6 billion dollars. Now Massoud Pezeshkian, the President
00:04:16of Iran, on the second anniversary of his inauguration, defended
00:04:19the Islamabad agreement with the US in a meeting with
00:04:22reporters. Because within its framework, Iran could
00:04:26export oil products and return part of its blocked money to the
00:04:30country. Sanctions are a
00:04:33reality. When we cannot sell
00:04:35our oil, it means we will not have
00:04:39foreign currency. Now, in our government, this pressure is at its maximum. Mr.
00:04:42Pezeshkian, defending the elimination of preferential foreign currency, says that if
00:04:46this had not been done earlier, famine would have been certain
00:04:50during the war. God helped us. If
00:04:54this had not happened and the war had started, there would have been
00:04:57a shortage in the market.
00:05:00It was certain that we wouldn't find it in the market
00:05:03because we no longer had 28-toman dollars to give, and they wouldn't sell goods with
00:05:06free dollars. The sanctions, which in recent
00:05:10years have meant more high prices and poverty for the people,
00:05:13have poured billions of dollars into the pockets of intermediaries who are trusted
00:05:17by the government and during the sanctions sell Iranian oil in
00:05:20the black market and, by circumventing the sanctions, return the money
00:05:24indirectly to the country,
00:05:28but not always and not all the money.
00:05:31Government officials have repeatedly reported the disappearance of billions
00:05:35of dollars by these trusted individuals. If I could,
00:05:38suppose I could get a concession,
00:05:42get a dollar that the market had a difference,
00:05:45eventually, I would automatically get several billion dollars. We had to eliminate
00:05:49these. Apparently, Mr. Pezeshkian has not
00:05:52forgotten where the January protests started, the Tehran
00:05:56market, protests that were sparked by high prices and a livelihood
00:06:00crisis and quickly turned into the biggest internal
00:06:04crisis in the history of the Islamic Republic.
00:06:07With these
00:06:10pressures they are putting, they want to make people dissatisfied
00:06:14and, so to speak, force them
00:06:17to protest. The President here talks about the privatization
00:06:20of industries, another source to compensate for the
00:06:24budget deficit. Saipa and other
00:06:28different companies are now in the program so that we can transfer
00:06:31them as much as possible. In November
00:06:342019, when the government increased fuel prices to compensate for the budget
00:06:38deficit, it led to widespread protests in the country, which ended with
00:06:42the killing of hundreds of people. In the midst of the
00:06:45government's efforts to find new financial resources,
00:06:49oil exports from Kharg Island have practically
00:06:52stopped. This means that the US has put its foot on the chokehold
00:06:55of Iran's economy.
00:06:59Under the shadow of sanctions and war, many Iranian people are keeping
00:07:02their faces red with slaps. Apparently, the government is also
00:07:06struggling with a severe shortage of foreign currency. This raises
00:07:10many questions. Including, if Iran does not reach
00:07:13an agreement with the US and the sanctions are not lifted,
00:07:17where will the government get
00:07:31report. Mr. Pezeshkian also gave a report on the economic
00:07:35situation today, which was even more critical than before. He explicitly said
00:07:39that we have no money and cannot
00:07:42import goods. All paths are closed. We cannot even import
00:07:45gasoline this time. Do you think that the government
00:07:49can cover its expenses in this situation?
00:07:52Look,
00:07:55what Mr. Pezeshkian announced today
00:07:59is a very small part
00:08:02of the chaos and economic crisis that exists in Iran,
00:08:05and he announced it to the people as a report,
00:08:09while the people are rightly and
00:08:13harshly and bitterly dealing with all these issues and much bigger crises.
00:08:16The people are well aware of this issue,
00:08:20and fundamentally, these reports, part of which they falsely announce
00:08:24and conceal, all of these they blame on sanctions or
00:08:27war or these issues. The people know their worth, and in
00:08:31the past years, and especially even in the past months
00:08:35and before the start of the war, they witnessed what economic
00:08:39crisis was unfolding in the country, from shortages of energy
00:08:42carriers to foreign currency shortages and other issues. Now, Mr.
00:08:46Pezeshkian is deflecting today because there will be
00:08:49much more serious crises ahead. An economic tsunami will
00:08:53probably be ahead. The government of the Islamic Republic has faced
00:08:57a very big bankruptcy, and we have been
00:09:00witnessing it in recent days. The fact that he refuses
00:09:04to do so, the conflicts that exist in the power struggles, now the government, considering that
00:09:07the institution of the government is essentially the entire ruling structure
00:09:11in the Islamic Republic. With the crisis of war and the fact
00:09:14that its entire foundation and totality are facing destruction,
00:09:18and that it is better that it is possible that this entire structure and organization
00:09:22will face disintegration to provide for this issue, it has turned
00:09:25to other hidden ways that it had and
00:09:28through regional solutions that it entered through
00:09:32money laundering that it carried out through the smuggling channels that existed,
00:09:35and with being subjected to more sanctions, and with the blockade
00:09:39that it faced, illegal sales.
00:10:08One solution that some economists talk about
00:10:11that the government has used in these years is that,
00:10:15as they say, it has put its hand in the pockets of the people,
00:10:19for example, by increasing taxes or
00:10:22by printing banknotes, which has caused inflation, and
00:10:25inflation itself is the biggest cost that has been imposed
00:10:28on the people. Do you think that the government
00:10:31can cover its expenses and the costs of the war
00:10:34through these means?
00:10:38In any case, what we are witnessing now is that the prices of the majority
00:10:42of goods and public necessities and even
00:10:45basic goods in Iran are much more expensive than what
00:10:49they call the Persian Gulf region and even other
00:10:52countries. This means that providing
00:10:55goods in Iran, in terms of their equivalent foreign currency,
00:10:59whether dollar or euro, is much more expensive compared to other countries,
00:11:03and this clearly shows that both the government
00:11:06and other structures of the government, such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps
00:11:09and other sectors that are involved in brokering and corruption
00:11:13in the government, the corrupt systems that have created cartels in this regard,
00:11:17all of them sell and offer goods at several times the price
00:11:20to the people in the first stage. In some places, they try to create
00:11:24very significant monopolies.
00:11:42These revenues that are obtained from this way, or for example,
00:11:45from the increased prices of services that
00:11:49the government provides, such as the increase in electricity prices, which are services
00:11:53that it provides, can these really
00:11:58compensate for the huge expenses that the government has,
00:12:01for example, can it cover the salaries of employees
00:12:05and pensioners through this way?
00:12:08Absolutely not. Economists, that is,
00:12:11the biggest analysis in this regard, is that it is not possible
00:12:14with this type of income. That is why it is constantly
00:12:18being examined, and the reports that come out and the assessments that come out show
00:12:22that many banks are on the verge of bankruptcy. The reason
00:12:25is that the government takes many actions
00:12:28to print money and increase
00:12:32the amount of liquidity. As we know, very large economic
00:12:35enterprises are dependent on the government.
00:12:38The government owes a lot of money
00:12:41to them, and they have very heavy
00:12:45debts. This shows that the government of the Islamic
00:12:49Republic does not have the capacity to bear this heavy economic
00:12:53burden, and with very small revenues,
00:12:56such as revenues from increasing the price of electricity, water,
00:13:00and gas, which will be very heavy for the people to bear, it cannot carry its own
00:13:04burden and is on the verge of a major economic bankruptcy. Another
00:13:07problem that the government is currently facing is that
00:13:11it has also lost its foreign exchange
00:13:14revenues in a way, especially, for example, in the metals
00:13:18export sector, in the part that was damaged
00:13:21in the war. How can it replace these revenues?
00:13:26Look, experts need to examine this carefully because many of these
00:13:29revenues are not real revenues, and they are not
00:13:33even legal and transparent revenues. Many of these
00:13:36cases are subject to international sanctions by the United Nations, the Security Council,
00:13:40and also the US Treasury. That is, many of these
00:13:44cases cannot be legally exported,
00:13:47and if they announce statistics, sometimes they are very
00:13:51dark statistics. Many of them are brokering and smuggling activities
00:13:55that are carried out, or bartering that is sometimes
00:13:58done indirectly and at much lower prices with
00:14:02countries like China and these, which has now become much
00:14:05less with this naval blockade, and many
00:14:09of these, the costs that were incurred in this regard,
00:14:13included these instigations in the region, included
00:14:17the actions that these militias took under the title of, well,
00:14:20but now the government does not even have these revenues. That is,
00:14:24a part of its expenses, for example, from the export of
00:14:27metals and these things, it used to cover. Now, those are gone. What
00:14:31substitute does it have? How can it compensate for these?
00:14:34If you also published a part of
00:14:37it, look, in this press conference that Mr. Pezeshkian had today,
00:14:41he acknowledged that he does not even have the ability to continue
00:14:44another war, even its initial support. That is, soon the government
00:14:48of the Islamic Republic will have to take another
00:14:52action that they themselves call economic surgery, but.
00:15:01They will make energy much more expensive, and they will again proceed
00:15:05to issue banknotes to compensate for some
00:15:09of these costs, because they have no other productive
00:15:12and constructive solution and no
00:15:24that an agreement
00:15:27on Hormuz is near, Tehran insists that the reopening
00:15:30of this waterway depends on the US accepting its
00:15:34conditions. Abbas Araqchi, Iran's Foreign Minister, said that Tehran and
00:15:38Muscat have come close to an agreement
00:15:41on a new shipping route, but the opening of this
00:15:44waterway requires other conditions, including compensation for violations
00:15:48of the Islamabad agreement by the US. Meanwhile, Massoud
00:15:51Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, defended negotiations
00:15:55with the US to achieve
00:16:11conditions whose main
00:16:14point was that continuing the war is not
00:16:17beneficial for Iran's economy and Iran no longer has economic
00:16:21resilience in these
00:16:24war conditions. However, we see that despite
00:16:27these, the sound of these
00:16:31imbalances does not reach a certain extremist
00:16:34faction, and they do not change their course.
00:16:39What is the reason? I think the reason goes back to the different
00:16:43standards that these different groups have,
00:16:47and the root of the disagreement is precisely this. Look, today Mr.
00:16:50Pezeshkian confirmed the differences, although, for example, yesterday
00:16:54he denied the issue of his resignation, but regarding Mr.
00:16:57Zolqadr, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he said that there
00:17:01are problems, we will solve them and then we will return
00:17:05to this issue. However,
00:17:28if you remember, a few years ago, Dr. Velayati, who was the chief advisor to the late leader of the Islamic Republic, advised the Iranian people to
00:17:31learn from the people of Yemen. The people of Yemen
00:17:34against the enemies.
00:17:42The standard that the groups opposing
00:17:45the agreement and insisting on continuing the
00:17:49war have is this. That is, in fact, until they bring
00:17:53the Iranian people to this state, in their opinion,
00:17:57it can still be continued. While Mr. Pezeshkian, as
00:18:00someone who manages the country's affairs, as the saying goes,
00:18:04holds the treasury and has to spend, sees
00:18:07that now more than 50% of the people have fallen
00:18:10below the poverty line, and the inflation
00:18:13of the past 80 years has been unprecedented,
00:18:17and the people have reached the threshold where they can no
00:18:19longer endure it. That is why
00:18:23some people, like Mr. Pezeshkian, Qalibaf,
00:18:26and Araqchi, say that the war must be ended here, and
00:18:29some dignity will also be achieved for the
00:18:33Islamic Republic. But the group that is opposite, like
00:18:36the hardliners and well, the extremists like
00:18:40Mohsen Rezaee and others, say that no, we can still
00:18:43continue the war, we can take revenge, and we can also
00:18:47gain more concessions. Well, that's the point. You mentioned
00:18:51that in the past, these same opponents
00:18:54existed, for example, there were many oppositions in the JCPOA
00:18:58negotiations, but the situation today is very different
00:19:02from that time. Many of those politicians
00:19:05are no longer there. Iran's situation is also different. Do you think
00:19:09that this group of hardline factions can create a
00:19:13stalemate in the negotiation process or
00:19:16decide about the war? Well,
00:19:20look, until now, they have created a stalemate and
00:19:23thrown obstacles. In the course of, in fact,
00:19:27after the agreement, we saw the shootings that took place
00:19:31in the Strait of Hormuz against ships. Again, a new
00:19:34round of war was, in fact, in the southern
00:19:38coast of the Persian Gulf, the Persian
00:19:42Gulf coast, was created. But anyway, both Iran and
00:19:46the US have progressed to the brink of a full-scale
00:19:49war again, similar to what happened in the 40-day or 12-day
00:19:53war. Therefore, they have this power. These
00:19:57obstacles, these, in fact,
00:20:00wrong analyses and miscalculations
00:20:04have always been present in this group. Look, the Islamic Republic, these are the same
00:20:08groups that have made the Islamic Republic more like a gambler
00:20:12who doesn't know when to leave the gambling table.
00:20:15If a gambler doesn't know this, like
00:20:19these hardliners who want to insist
00:20:23on the war, they will worsen the
00:20:26situation beyond the disaster that has already occurred. This is not
00:20:30the first time, as you said, even before the JCPOA,
00:20:33during the 8-year war between Iraq and Iran, these same extremists
00:20:37like Mohsen Rezaee were saying that if you give us money,
00:20:41we might, for example, if we get access to a nuclear
00:20:45bomb by 1992, defeat Iraq.
00:20:48Now, with the same wrong and illusory
00:20:51thinking, they want to impose this war on the people
00:20:55again and continue it. Mr. Toufighi, at that time,
00:20:59during these historical periods you referred
00:21:02to, the leader of the Islamic Republic acted as a
00:21:06brake. But now, how much has the absence of Mojtaba
00:21:10Khamenei exacerbated this situation? Do you think that these factions are
00:21:14supported, and conversely, does he also need the support
00:21:18of this group?
00:21:20Look, if Mojtaba Khamenei has learned a lesson from his
00:21:24father, provided that he is actually alive, and these
00:21:27messages, we can only say that he is appointed,
00:21:31because in fact, he has not been seen, nor has his voice
00:21:35been heard after the war. Therefore, if he has
00:21:38learned a lesson from his father, this very issue of
00:21:41treading a middle path, that is, he tries to have,
00:21:44for example, the hardliners with him, and he also tries
00:21:48to preserve those who are more
00:21:51moderate. The same approach of
00:21:55playing both sides is what we
00:21:59see, for example, on the one hand, the Revolutionary Guard Corps comes
00:22:02and says that the Leader agrees with the agreement.
00:22:05The agreement was with his consent. On the other hand,
00:22:09when he sends a message, he says that, in fact,
00:22:12I had a different opinion in principle. This
00:22:16intermediate situation, unfortunately, has
00:22:19been to its detriment. During Khamenei's time, it was the same.
00:22:23If you remember, the JCPOA, even in the years before the JCPOA,
00:22:26in the early years of the nuclear issue, during Khatami's time,
00:22:30the issue could have been resolved in a way, but they
00:22:33dragged it on so much, it continued to the point where it actually
00:22:37led to this war, and now the same approach
00:22:41and the same policy of these people who do
00:22:44not think about national interests have some ideological
00:22:48illusions, and they think that
00:22:54the cost of these ideological illusions has been paid by the Iranian
00:22:58people with their lives, their wealth, and
00:23:01even their future over the past 47
00:23:05years. The difference this time is that Iran's situation
00:23:09has entered a war and has lost many things.
00:23:12Even now, the war has costs, and Pezeshkian's government says
00:23:16it doesn't even have the money to meet the daily needs
00:23:20of the people, let alone the costs of the war. In this case,
00:23:24what do you think can satisfy these opposition groups?
00:23:28Look, these opposition
00:23:31groups usually
00:23:33sometimes try to play the role of a madman,
00:23:37and as Mr. Shariatmadari said, we should be
00:23:40like a car whose brakes are cut
00:23:44and steering wheel is cut, only accelerating.
00:23:48But with all this, we have seen that when
00:23:51the very principle of the system is in danger,
00:23:55and well, this can also
00:23:58be said that parts within the
00:24:01leadership's office,
00:24:05although it has not yet been formed, but
00:24:07its remnants largely exist.
00:24:11This balance, I think, if the issue
00:24:14of Mojtaba Khamenei's absence
00:24:17does not disrupt this balance,
00:24:21usually these hardliners stop at some point,
00:24:24and that point is the expediency of the system.
00:24:28But well, as you said, this is a war,
00:24:32and it is possible that in some circumstances, the other side, Mr.
00:24:35Trump, in his last tweet, if you remember,
00:24:39made a threat and said that, in fact, I will do
00:24:43something that has not happened since World War
00:24:46II. Well, many analysts said that such
00:24:50a thing has not happened in wars after World
00:24:53War II. The issue, for example, of using an atomic
00:24:57bomb or, anyway, new technologies or similar issues. Well,
00:25:01it is possible that in a miscalculation,
00:25:04these hardliners sometimes want to insist
00:25:07too much, and this miscalculation may
00:25:11actually make the situation very complicated.
00:25:14Of course, if only the Islamic Republic itself were destroyed, there would be no problem.
00:25:18The issue here is Iran's resources, Iran's infrastructure,
00:25:31Duns, the Vice President of the US, says that Tehran has assured
00:25:35Washington that it will allow the maximum possible
00:25:38amount of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But the US
00:25:41will verify this promise of the Iranian government. This is
00:25:45while the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the Revolutionary Guard
00:25:48Corps say that negotiations with Oman are not related
00:25:51to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the US must accept
00:25:55Iran's conditions for opening
00:26:09really is, that is, that there
00:26:13is no trust, but at the same
00:26:15time, there is a desire to reach
00:26:19an agreement. He says that until they actually
00:26:22see that the Strait of Hormuz is open and the same amount of
00:26:26oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz before
00:26:29the war is passing again, they
00:26:33will not really trust the statements
00:26:37of the officials of the Islamic Republic.
00:26:40Duns' argument is that, in fact,
00:26:44the two countries, Iran and Oman,
00:26:46should somehow maintain the security
00:26:50of ship traffic. And he even emphasizes
00:26:53that there is no talk of collecting
00:26:56tolls. We know that
00:27:00previously, officials of the Islamic Republic had said that they wanted
00:27:03to collect 5 to 7 percent in tolls.
00:27:07Throughout these negotiations, their emphasis
00:27:10was on collecting Iranian shipping tolls.
00:27:13Their conditions, which you talked about,
00:27:16are specifically the lifting of the naval blockade,
00:27:20the withdrawal of American forces from the region, and
00:27:24this is completely, in fact, the cessation
00:27:26of war with Iran and with Iran's
00:27:29proxy forces in the region. Therefore,
00:27:33despite all this, Mr. Duns comes and says
00:27:37that negotiations are moving towards the possibility of this agreement
00:27:41being reached, but they need to see in practice what happens.
00:27:44In a way, it shows that
00:27:48it is highly likely to be fifty-fifty,
00:27:52it may happen and it may not happen, and
00:27:55Washington still doesn't know
00:27:58what will happen to this agreement. Mr. Trump
00:28:02had previously said that he plays a direct
00:28:06role in these negotiations. Iranian officials say that Mr.
00:28:10Trump and the US are trying to somehow show that
00:28:14the US has no role in this matter and that Iran
00:28:17and Oman are making decisions. On the one hand, as you
00:28:21yourself pointed out, Duns says that they do not
00:28:24trust Iran much, but on the other hand,
00:28:28in recent days, we have heard many times that various US officials say that the negotiations are going well.
00:28:37What is the view in the US
00:28:40on these negotiations with Iran? It
00:28:43seems that a group, even among those who are actually
00:28:47supporters of Mr. Trump, say that this must happen at all costs
00:28:51and this issue must be resolved.
00:28:54But another group views the
00:28:58situation with great pessimism. An example is the statements
00:29:01of Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense
00:29:04in America during Mr. Trump's first administration. Of course, he was dismissed
00:29:08by Mr. Trump himself. He
00:29:11believes that delegating the security
00:29:14and control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and Oman is a very
00:29:18dangerous
00:29:20situation. From this ambiguous situation where America's
00:29:23role in these negotiations is not clear, he criticizes
00:29:27a bit. In this interview, he says we don't know if America really had a
00:29:31part in this agreement
00:29:35or if America's demands were also taken into consideration. Therefore, there are concerns
00:29:38from this side that if America completely
00:29:42hands over control to Iran and
00:29:45Oman, it will in fact lose in this
00:29:48front. Of course, people like Mark Esper. Mark Esper was someone
00:29:52who was not very happy with the initial memorandum
00:29:56of understanding and believed that Donald Trump should withdraw
00:29:59from that memorandum. People like him
00:30:04generally view the negotiations with the Islamic Republic with suspicion
00:30:07and believe that
00:30:10there should be a full-fledged military
00:30:13confrontation.
00:30:24the Strait of Hormuz, where you can now practically see
00:30:28that the number of vessels and tankers that are
00:30:31passing through this strait is almost
00:30:34very, very negligible. Iran and Oman have been
00:30:38negotiating for days over a mechanism to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,
00:30:42but now Iran has also put new conditions
00:30:46on the table. As
00:30:49Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the Secretary of the Supreme National
00:30:53Security Council, stated in his statement, he has set
00:30:56conditions that are somewhat similar to the Pakistan
00:30:59memorandum of understanding, but a bit more extensive in that regard.