Iran says US actions toward Venezuela undermine global security

The Marand–Cheshmeh Soraya transit line, which will run toward Turkey’s Aralik border region, will span about 200 kilometres and cost roughly $1.6 billion.

Iranian authorities say construction is expected to take three to four years to complete.

Speaking in Tehran alongside his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Araghchi said the two sides had agreed in their meeting “to begin work, on a priority basis, to connect the two countries’ railway lines at the border.”

Earlier this month, Iran’s transport minister Farzaneh Sadegh said the project would transform the southern section of the historic Silk Road into an “all-rail corridor ensuring the continuity of the network between China and Europe”.

She said it would enable “fast and cheap transport of all types of cargo with minimal stops”.

The ancient Silk Road linked East Asia to the Middle East and Europe for centuries before declining with the rise of maritime trade routes.

China launched its Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, seeking to revive those connections through major maritime, road and rail projects. Despite close political relations with China, Iran has been largely left out of the initiative’s major investments.

Iran has sought to expand infrastructure and trade ties with neighbouring states as it works to revive its strained economy.

Iran's semi-official ISNA cited education minister Alireza Kazemi as saying that Iranian school in Jeddah has reopened after years of closure.

The move, Kazemi said, has "increased Iran’s educational influence in the region."

Iran’s only school in Saudi Arabia was closed in 2016 after Iran withdrew its diplomatic staff from the kingdom.

At the time, Iranian reported that the school had 15 students and two Iranian teachers, who returned to Iran along with the diplomats after the ambassador left Saudi Arabia.

In January 2016, Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran in 2016 following the storming of its embassy in Tehran during a dispute over Riyadh's execution of Shiite Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Nimr, who was one of the leaders of the Shiite protests in Saudi Arabia in 2011, had studied in Iran’s religious city of Qom.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the execution of Nimr "a political mistake and a great sin".

Tehran and Riyadh agreed to end their diplomatic rift and re-open embassies in a major deal facilitated by China in 2023.

Iran’s reopening of the school in Jeddah comes as Saudi Arabia plays a renewed intermediary role between Tehran and Washington, after President Masoud Pezeshkian asked Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to convey a message to the United States to help prepare the conditions for resuming nuclear talks.

In 2020, Iran’s state-run English-language newspaper Tehran Times reported that the education ministry was overseeing 95 Iranian schools in 43 countries. However, in 2022, Iranian media, citing the deputy head of the Centre for International Affairs and Overseas Schools, said the number of overseas schools had fallen by about half, without giving a new total.

Amir Mahmoudi, head of the Karkheh Dam and power plant, said water is now being released through lower outlets to supply downstream needs after the generating units went offline. He said the dam’s reservoir currently holds about one billion cubic meters of water, with the water level 40 meters below normal operating height.

Mahmoudi said the Karkheh basin has endured several years of drought and low rainfall, urging conservation of water for drinking, farming, livestock, and industrial use.

The Karkheh Dam, one of the largest earthen dams in the world and the biggest in Iran and the Middle East, was built on the Karkheh River about 22 kilometers northwest of Andimeshk in Khuzestan province. It has a total generating capacity of 400 megawatts.

The shutdown comes as Iran faces one of its worst droughts in decades, with reservoirs across the country running dangerously low. Domestic media have reported steep drops at Tehran’s Karaj and Latian dams, while officials in Mashhad, Kerman and Yazd warn of collapsing aquifers and forced water rationing.

The Kurdish rights group Hengaw said this week that authorities in western Iran have also increased pressure on local journalists covering the crisis. Reporters in the city of Baneh were summoned or threatened by security agents after publishing reports on water shortages that left some neighborhoods without running water for more than three days.

The group said some journalists were accused of “spreading public anxiety” and forced to sign written pledges not to report further on the issue.

“Peace, stability and security in the vital and strategic Strait of Hormuz are important for all nations of the region, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we are their guardians,” Major General Amir Hatami said at a naval ceremony in southern Iran.

He said Iran and its neighbors have lived and worked in the region for centuries, adding that “those who are not from this region and have no place here should leave.”

Hatami said any attempt to disrupt regional stability would “create disorder,” and that the countries bordering the Persian Gulf should share its benefits “under fair conditions.”

Iran adds repaired destroyer and floating base

The remarks came as Iran added the destroyer Sahand and the floating base Kordestan to its navy, in what the army described as a move to strengthen maritime power and technical self-reliance.

The Sahand, a domestically built Moudge-class frigate fitted with cruise missiles and radar-evading technology, capsized during repairs at the southern port of Bandar Abbas last year after water entered its ballast tanks. The Navy later refloated and restored it.

The Kordestan floating base is designed to serve as a mobile port supporting naval and non-naval units far from Iranian shores. Mehr news agency said it “can play an important role in supporting combat and logistics operations at sea.”

Hatami said Iran’s forces remain ready to respond to any threat. “Our forces will not wait for an enemy to attack,” he said. “We are ready to deliver a decisive and crushing response wherever our national interests require.”

The clearest example comes from a darkened political talk show where once-unshakeable Iranian commanders now appear compelled to sit for unusually probing interviews.

A general adjusts the ring on his finger before answering. Another clears his throat to buy time. All are addressing—or attempting to address—now-unavoidable questions verbalised by host Javad Mogui, a documentary filmmaker long aligned with the establishment.

Since the 12-day war with Israel, the show’s tone has visibly shifted: clipped, direct, and edged with the frustrations circulating inside the system.

‘Too soft on the US’

One recent guest was senior Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi.Mogui asked him about Iran’s retaliatory strike on a US base in Iraq following the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

“Many believe the roots of the recent war go back to that moment,” Mogui said in the dim light. “That our response was too soft.” Then, quietly: “Do you accept that we did not hit the Americans well enough?”

Naghdi smiled, though not comfortably. His replacement was quietly confirmed days later.

No Americans were killed in that attack, not least because Tehran reportedly telegraphed its intentions to Washington with enough notice.

‘At home’

In another episode Mogui asked air defence chief Gholamreza Jalali where he had been when Israel struck Tehran, killing many of Iran’s top brass.

“I was at home,” Jalali said. Mogui paused. “Should the armed forces not have been ready?” Jalali replied: “We did not expect that they would target the homes of commanders.”

Other senior figures have appeared under the same narrow pool of light: foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, IRGC chief’s top adviser Ahmad Vahidi among others.

Each was asked about missed signals and the war’s opening hours—unamiganable without a nod from the highest authorities.

Political analyst Jaber Rajabi told Iran International TV that the candor reflects unease inside the system.

“The questions the host asks are the same ones being asked within the Revolutionary Guards and among pro-government supporters,” he said. “If they do not hear convincing answers, it could cause defections within these ranks.”

Patriotic turn

That insecurity is mirrored in Tehran’s cultural messaging.

In recent weeks the city unveiled a towering statue in Revolution Square depicting the Roman emperor Valerian kneeling before Shapur I, echoing a Sasanian relief.

The project anchors a campaign titled “You will kneel before Iran again,” launched near the anniversary of the 1979 embassy seizure.

Beneath the statue sit twelve panels narrating moments of “resistance” from Persian myth to the fight against ISIS and the recent twelve-day war.

The unveiling featured mobile LED trucks and orchestral performances, but officials insisted it was not a promotional event.

“This is the continuation of a historical truth: every invader has bowed before the will of the Iranian people,” the head of Tehran’s Beautification Organization said.

Tone not intent

Foreign reporting has noticed the same shift.

The Financial Times this week highlighted insiders arguing that Iran “must decide whether it wants to be a force that challenges or supports regional security.”

The Economist, asked whether the regime can survive five more years, replied that it likely will, though the “big question” is whether a change of leader would mean a change of regime.

Middle East correspondent Nicolas Pelham added that Iran appears to be “trying to reinvent itself,” pointing to the rise of explicit nationalist symbols.

Together, these strands point to a tactical revision rather than transformation: a state unsettled enough to justify decisions it once presented as self-evident, and determined to wrap that unease in a grander narrative of historical inevitability.

It is a shift more in register than structure—an Iran 0.2 more than 2.0.