Iranian President: We Must Relocate From Tehran

Iranian President: We Must Relocate From Tehran

 HUGH FITZGERALD

The historic drought that has gripped Iran for several years requires the Islamic Republic to relocate its capital, according to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Tehran has ten million inhabitants. How many tens of billions of dollars will it cost the state to move them all? And where will they go?

More on this extraordinary crisis can be found here: “Iran ‘Has No Choice’ but to Move Capital as Water Crisis Deepens, Says President,” by Ailin Vilches Arguello, Algemeiner, November 20, 2025:

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian affirmed on Thursday that the country “has no choice” but to relocate its capital, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain — even as the regime spends billions of dollars rebuilding its military and nuclear infrastructure and backing its terrorist proxies.

In a televised national address, the Iranian leader renewed his call to relocate the capital, asserting that the deepening crisis has “rendered the city uninhabitable.”

Pezeshkian said Iran’s water, land, and infrastructure systems are under such extreme pressure that relocating the capital is now unavoidable, adding that when the move was first proposed, the government lacked even a minimal budget to pursue it.

“The truth is, we have no choice left — relocating the capital is now a necessity,” he said during his speech.

With parts of the city sinking up to 30 centimeters a year and water supplies dwindling, Pezeshkian described Tehran’s current situation as a “catastrophe.”

He urged government ministries and public officials to coordinate their efforts to avert a grim future for the country.

“Protecting the environment is not a game,” the Iranian leader said.

“Ignoring it is signing our own destruction,” he continued, explaining that Tehran can no longer cope with population growth or the city’s expanding construction.

Among the solutions considered to tackle the crisis, one has been importing water from the Gulf of Oman. However, Pezeshkian noted that such an approach is extremely costly, with each cubic meter costing millions to deliver to Tehran….

How long would it take to build enough desalination plants to handle all that water lifted from the Gulf of Oman? How would that water flow from the Gulf of Oman, through a thousand kilometers to Tehran, given that there are at present no pipelines along that route? How long would it take to build the necessary infrastructure capable of carrying enough water to meet the needs of ten million displaced Tehranis?

Chabahar is the city that is mentioned as the likely recipient of ten million Tehranis. It now has fewer than 200,000 people. Who would build, in what time frame, enough housing to accommodate fifty times that number of inhabitants? And what infrastructure beyond housing would a new capital city require, to house government offices, military headquarters, and so much else? President Pezeshkian doesn’t dare to discuss this insurmountable problem.

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