Iran foreign minister claims protest unrest has ‘come under total control’

Iran’s foreign minister has claimed the situation in the country has “come under total control” as authorities carry out a brutal crackdown against the nationwide protest movement.

Abbas Araghchi made the comments to foreign diplomats in Tehran, without supplying evidence.

The few messages and videos to have emerged from Iran overnight showed that protests were continuing, but an ongoing internet blackout made it difficult to judge if the authorities’ use of violence had been effective in blunting the movement’s momentum.

The protests, now in their 16th day, started when traders in Tehran took to the streets to protest over a sudden depreciation in the national currency. They have expanded into nationwide demonstrations with protesters calling for the fall of the Iranian regime – triggering a heavy-handed response by authorities.

Iran has beat back previous rounds of mass unrest through the use of force, notably in 2009 and 2019. The coming few days are being seen as a bellwether for the staying power of the current protest movement in the face of an increasingly lethal response.

The foreign minister claimed that western powers had turned peaceful protests “violent and bloody to give an excuse” for military intervention. Iranian officials have accused Israel and the US of backing protests and using them to try to destabilise the country, despite the apparent vast popular participation of everyday Iranians in the protest movement.

The government crackdown has drawn a wave of condemnation from the international community, with Germany and Canada calling on authorities to halt their repression of Iranians on Monday.

Hours before Araghchi’s statement, Donald Trump claimed Iran had reached out and proposed negotiations, even as he considered “very strong” military action against the regime over the intensifying crackdown that has reportedly killed hundreds.

Asked on Sunday by reporters onboard Air Force One if Iran had crossed his previously stated red line of protesters being killed, Trump said: “They’re starting to, it looks like.”

He added that while Iran had asked for negotiations, “we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting” – referring to the intensity of the government’s crackdown on protesters. “We’re looking at it very seriously,” the US president said. “The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options. We’ll make a determination.”

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said channels were open for talks with the US, but that they needed to be based on “mutual interests and concerns”.

Trump had previously threatened intervention in Iran if the government killed protesters – a threat that is being called after rights groups say hundreds of Iranian protesters have been killed over the past week.

What little information made its way out of Iran amid its internet blackout – now in its fourth day – showed continued use of force against protesters and a soaring death toll.

“After some time, in the darkness, gunfire began and people were hit by bullets. There were no security forces present in the streets. Based on what we observed, we suspect the shots were fired either from drones in the sky or directly from rooftops,” said a protester in the Punak neighbourhood of Tehran.

They added that authorities seemed to cut off electricity before firing at protesters, so that the crowds were plunged into darkness before bullets start flying.

A video circulating over the weekend showed dozens of bodies in a warehouse in the Kahrizak area of Tehran. The Hengaw human rights group said the warehouse was being used as an overflow facility for a morgue that was too overcrowded.

Footage showed families huddled around a wide-screen television where faces of the dead at the morgue would appear, hoping to learn the fate of their loved ones who went out to protest but did not return.

At least 544 people – including 483 protesters and 47 security forces – have been killed in the demonstrations, and more than 10,681 protesters arrested, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The organisation cautioned that the death toll was likely to continue to climb and that it was currently verifying 579 additional reports of individuals killed. The regime has not supplied its own figures and it was not possible to independently verify them.

Iranian authorities have sought to clamp down on protests by a very public show of force inside Iran, handing out harsh sentences to those they deem to be involved in demonstrations.

At least 96 cases of forced confessions had been broadcast by state media, evidence that was often used later to carry out death sentences, rights groups warned.

One protester, 26-year-old Irfan Soltani, had been sentenced to death, with his execution slated for Wednesday, the Hengaw rights group said, citing his family. Soltani would be the first protester executed by authorities since the protest movement began.

State media called for pro-government demonstrators to flood the streets in support of the regime on Monday, as it tried to minimise the impact of the protest movement. The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also called for people to join a “national resistance march” on Monday.

The brutal crackdown has raised the likelihood of US intervention, with Trump saying he would “rescue” protesters if the Iranian government killed them. He reiterated his threat to intervene on Saturday night. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” he said on Truth Social.

In response, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, warned Washington against “a miscalculation”, saying that Israel and US interests in the Middle East would become targets.

“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Ghalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran last week. Photograph: KHOSHIRAN/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, on Sunday urged Iranian security forces and government employees to join the swelling protest movement. “Employees of state institutions, as well as members of the armed and security forces, have a choice: stand with the people and become allies of the nation, or choose complicity with the murderers of the people,” Pahlavi posted on social media.

Protesters have increasingly rallied around Pahlavi as an opposition figure to the regime, with demonstrators chanting support for his family dynasty. He has claimed that thousands of members of Iran’s security forces have signalled their intent to defect through an online platform he has created, and that he will give further instructions when the time is right.