Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin that members must expand trade in national currencies and strengthen financial mechanisms to withstand sanctions.
Addressing the gathering on Monday, Pezeshkian outlined a three-part proposal called the “Special Accounts and Settlements of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”
The plan proposes to expand the use of national currencies in trade, develop shared digital systems including central bank digital currencies, and create a multilateral swap fund to support members facing sanctions or liquidity crises.
“This initiative will enhance economic resilience and turn the SCO into a model of a fair multipolar financial order,” he said.
He also urged the formation of a committee of foreign ministers to manage crises and respond quickly to violations of sovereignty.
This was not the first time Pezeshkian stressed de-dollarization. At a BRICS meeting in Russia in 2024, he said the bloc was recognized for “challenging the dominance of the dollar” and promoting national currencies.
At that time, an image of a banknote bearing the BRICS emblem in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the organization’s summit in Tatarstan drew media attention and sparked discussion about the possibility of its members adopting a common currency.
In December 2024, before officially taking office as US President Donald Trump warned BRICS members that if they used any currency other than the US dollar, they would face a 100% tariff.
Absent from leaders’ photo
A video released Sunday showed Pezeshkian missing from the customary group photo.
Iranian media said he arrived late, while his deputy for communications said the official summit was to begin the following day and the photo was taken during an informal banquet. Unofficial Iranian accounts said his absence was due to alcohol being served at the reception, an issue sensitive for Iranian officials.
Tehran is seen as banking on bilateral meetings during the summit, particularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, as it seeks to manage fallout from its nuclear dispute with the West.
Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) initially focused on regional security and counterterrorism.
Over time, China and Russia have framed it as a counterweight to US and NATO influence. The SCO now has 10 full members—including India, Pakistan, Iran (since 2023), and Belarus (since 2024)—and its agenda has expanded to economic, political, and military cooperation.
Malley served as US special envoy for Iran under President Joe Biden and was a key architect of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. He was placed on leave and had his security clearance suspended in 2023 over alleged mishandling of classified information.
His Yale course for Fall 2025, titled Adversaries by Design: Deconstructing the Iran-US Relationship, will examine ties between Washington and Tehran from the 1979 Islamic Revolution to the present.
The syllabus, seen by Iran International, says students are expected to “internalize” both American and Iranian perspectives, and assignments include role-playing exercises simulating negotiations between the two governments.
However, the list of people whose works students are required to read mainly consists of former Islamic Republic officials or analysts aligned with their thinking.
The syllabus’s reading list includes “How Iran Sees the Path to Peace,” a December 2024 Foreign Affairs essay by former foreign minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif, who has been under US sanctions since 2019. The article, assigned for the Week 11, outlines his diplomatic perspective on Iran’s relations with the West.
While Yale’s website says the course will feature guest speakers, it does not identify them. However, an op-ed by a Yale student published Friday in the Jewish News Syndicate names Zarif as one of the invited speakers.
The syllabus also assigns a 2019 Foreign Affairs article by Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and diplomat. The piece, “How Iran Sees its Standoff with the United States,” appears in the Week 8 readings on the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Mousavian recently ended his 15-year tenure at Princeton University, which the university described as a retirement. Activists, however, said it followed pressure over his alleged ties to state-linked assassinations and propaganda efforts especially when he served as Iran's ambassador to Berlin.
Other authors featured on the reading list include Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Ali Vaez, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, and Trita Parsi who are mostly opposed to Iran sanctions and favor normalized relations.
Their works, assigned in weeks dedicated to sanctions and diplomacy, argue that US sanctions have been ineffective or harmful to ordinary Iranians and explore possible diplomatic paths forward.
One of the required reading texts is How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare by Bajoghli, Nasr, Salehi-Isfahani, and Vaez, alongside Batmanghelidj’s How Sanctions Hurt Iran’s Protesters and Parsi’s No, Sanctions Didn’t Force Iran to Make a Deal.
In 2023, Iran International and Semafor investigation uncovered the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) - a network formed under Zarif to promote Iran's foreign policy and nuclear strategy through scholars based abroad. Ali Vaez was named as one of its key members.
The judiciary has accelerated death sentences since Israel struck the prison on June 23.
Human rights lawyers said the attack gave judges a pretext for vengeance.
“A spirit of vengeance has taken over the judiciary,” one Tehran lawyer, who asked not to be named, told the Times.
“A judge told me: ‘Our generals and officials have been killed, and we should take revenge.’ He didn’t even allow me to speak.”
Motahareh Gounei, a 28-year-old dental student arrested for criticizing the state, survived the bombing in Ward 209. “I thought, ‘This is it. I’m dead. I’ll be buried here,’” she said in a phone interview after being released on bail.
Rights groups say many of those now marked for execution were jailed for protest activity, not espionage, and their cases rest on confessions extracted under torture.
Asghar Jahangir, spokesperson for the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, announced on June 29 that in the Israeli attack on Evin Prison, 71 people were killed.
“The casualties included administrative staff, soldiers, inmates, family members who had come for visits or legal follow-ups, and neighbors living near the prison,” he said.
From ‘Evin University’ to collective punishment
Evin has long been notorious for torture yet also carried symbolic weight for the opposition. Political detainees staged hunger strikes, organized discussions and even confronted judges visiting the prison. It became known among activists as Evin University.
That fragile space was erased by the airstrike. The following day, authorities transferred 61 women to Qarchak, a facility notorious for disease and overcrowding.
“Since we were transferred to Qarchak, we’ve lost the right to work in workshops and to cover our living expenses. That means we can no longer buy groceries and are forced to eat the prison’s food, which is mostly plain rice,” one inmate said in a monitored call.
Gounei was later moved to an intelligence-run safe house. “Your name isn’t recorded anywhere,” she said. “My interrogator told me: ‘I’ll rape you and dump your body in the desert.’”
Rising executions
Iran Human Rights, an NGO, recorded 511 executions in the first five months of 2025, nearly double the same period last year. The judiciary has announced 700 arrests for alleged espionage during the war, vowing to show “no mercy.”
Male inmates from Evin have also faced brutality. About 500 transferred prisoners were returned in chains and beaten by riot police. Roughly 100 condemned prisoners were separated from the rest, including Mohammad-Bagher Bakhtiar, a 67-year-old former Revolutionary Guard commander turned dissident.
His son, Ali Reza, said: “Since the transfer to Evin, due to lack of access to medical staff, the full extent of the injuries to my father and other detainees is still unknown.”
Israel said its strikes on Evin aimed at guards and were designed to embolden the opposition. Officials accused Tehran of exploiting the attack to justify executions while presenting the war as a domestic victory.