00:00Today on India Today Global, we are getting your voices from all respects, from everywhere,
00:07from within Iran, from outside of Iran, and an Indian voice as well.
00:12Ilham Abedini, Iranian journalist from Tehran, joins me to discuss the situation on the ground.
00:18Ilham, thank you so much for joining me.
00:20What is your reading of the economic situation in Iran people have taken to the streets?
00:24Is this a serious threat to the current administration?
00:30First of all, thank you for having me.
00:34About your first question and the economic situation on Iran, it's completely obvious that the economic situation in Iran is not good.
00:46And in the recent years, in the recent round of elections, we've seen that people's expectation was about economic,
00:59actually all presidential candidates talk about economic situation, how to improve that.
01:05So it shows that in Iran economy situation is not stable, it's not good, and we face inflation in our country.
01:18But the important issue is that we face the biggest and strongest sanction package that any country faces.
01:35So I think we have not to forget the impact of sanctions and what we are seeing now in our economic situation.
01:47Absolutely, there are some mismanagement, some problems that we have here in Iran in governing of the countries in economic situation.
01:58But I think the key issue is that we have not to forget how much these sanctions have influenced what we have seen here.
02:10And this time, after the Iranian government tried to make some changes, amendments on economic situation,
02:24in the short term, we would face more economic crisis.
02:32But actually, the Iranian government could improve after that.
02:38But now we face this economic crisis, and even at first in this round of, I have to call it riots and terrorist attacks,
02:55at first it was some kind of economic protest.
02:59And almost all protesters in the early days was people who worked in bazaars, in markets,
03:15and they had protests that the inflation is so high and the prices are not stable.
03:23But, and this is obvious that there are economic issues in Iran.
03:34Okay, interesting.
03:35You were saying that earlier there were all protesters who were protesting on economic grounds.
03:42Now that's not the case.
03:44But the government is in catch-22 situation, Ilham.
03:47If they act against the protesters, U.S. has promised action.
03:50If they do not, then their own existence is under threat.
03:54Trump has already threatened action.
03:57What's the situation on the ground on the fact that there could be action by the United States of America?
04:02Actually, I think about Donald Trump and what he bought or what he's done.
04:15There are many experiences, there are many events that we can judge about him and this.
04:21For instance, the latest step that he took, he just go on Venezuela and kidnap the legitimate president of there and abducted him.
04:38Or in the other case, we've seen the United States make some reward for Jolani and name him as a terrorist.
04:51But now he go on White House and just shake hands with Donald Trump.
05:00And also there are many, many other events, even about Iran.
05:05We know that Iran was under, actually, meetings on nuclear issues and it was discussing, it was discussing with the United States.
05:18But during the talks, the United States supported the Israeli regime and they attacked Iran.
05:28So, I want to mention that we cannot rely on Donald Trump, actually, votes or claims against Iran or even in support of Iran, its claims.
05:52If I could just ask you one more question, will your allies, like, will Iran's allies like China and Russia come to Iran's rescue or not?
06:01Because you can see all of this, but they need help.
06:04So, will China and Russia come to your rescue?
06:07About China and Russia or any other countries that are allied with Iran, I have to mention that Iran could defeat Israeli regime and its allies in 12th day war.
06:32So, that was a really big military operation that happened against Iranian people and Iran could manage that.
06:47Absolutely, there was economic costs and there are many, unfortunately, about more than a thousand people in Iran killed by Israeli regime because of that 12th day bombardment.
07:07But, at the final step, we have seen that the United States and Israeli regime tried to make ceasefire.
07:19And during that time, China, we didn't get any help from China or Russia or any other country.
07:26So, we do not expect any country to do anything more than mutual cooperation to rescue us.
07:39And we could manage our domestic issues.
07:44But, we are sure that countries, especially in the south of the world, developing countries, and also Russia, China, and even India,
08:06that are rising power, they had to help each other to confront the hegemon of the United States
08:17and all plotted and sabotaged that the United States and its allies tried to do to confront the rising power of these countries.
08:27So, we think that if these countries help Iran, I don't want to say help, but if they cooperate with Iran,
08:39this is actually for the interest of themselves as well.
08:46Because this is a new world order.
08:51And if we want to get a better position in this new world order, we have to enhance our cooperation.
09:04All right.
09:06Okay.
09:07Alham Abedini, thank you so much for joining us here from Tehran.
09:10We'll keep coming back to you to know what's happening on the ground.
09:13We'll keep coming back to you to know what's happening on the ground.
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