Does Iran's new president want to move the capital out of Tehran?
President Masoud Pezeshkian has stated that Iran's capital should be moved from Tehran to a city closer to the country's southern coast.
In a speech last weekend, Pezeshkian, who took office in July, suggested that continued development of Tehran was pointless because the city was facing numerous difficulties.
According to Javan Online, he stated that the capital is currently facing "water shortages, land subsidence, and air pollution," among other problems.
"Tehran, as the country's capital, is facing problems for which we have no solutions," the president acknowledged, adding that the best way out of this situation is to "relocate the country's political and economic center."
Simply telling people to leave Tehran won't work, and the government "must first relocate itself so that people will follow us," Pezeshkian argued.
He emphasized that there were also economic reasons for finding a new capital closer to the Persian Gulf, where major trade routes passed through.
"We cannot develop the country any further if the current trend continues, where we bring resources from the south of the country and the sea to the center, process them there, and send them back south for export," the president argued.
He emphasized that such a situation "seriously devalues and reduces our competitiveness, and we have no choice but to shift the country's economic and political center southward and closer to the sea."
Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who served as mayor of Tehran in the 1990s, opposed Pezeshkian's idea, arguing that there is no suitable alternative to Tehran. “Where do you want to go?” he said in an interview with Iran’s Asr news agency. The former mayor warned that several countries that had previously decided to relocate their capitals ended up losing money and having two problematic cities instead of one.
Tehran, the capital of Iran since 1786, is located in the north of the country, 100km from the Caspian Sea. The city is home to 9.4 million people, with nearly 17 million in the expanded metropolitan area, making Tehran the largest city in Iran and West Asia, and the second largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, after Cairo.
This is not the first time the Iranian government has proposed moving the capital out of Tehran. Similar proposals were made during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's term from 2005 to 2013. At that time, Parliament voted to establish a special council to find an alternative location. However, a final decision on moving the capital was never made.
Pezeshkian assumed the Iranian presidency at the end of July after defeating his opponent Saeed Jalili with 53.7% to 44.3% in the second round of elections held in early July. The snap election was held following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.
