People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

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.

Earlier this year, the Iranian regime announced it was considering relocating the capital to the Makran coast in the country’s south, a remote region overlooking the Gulf of Oman, in a bid to ease Tehran’s congestion and alleviate its water and energy shortages.

Advocates of this initiative emphasize its strategic benefits, including direct access to the Indian Ocean and significant economic potential through maritime trade, centered on the port of Chabahar, Iran’s crucial gateway to Central Asia.

However, critics argue that the region is still underdeveloped, fraught with security risks, and unprepared to function as a capital, warning that the move could cost tens of billions of dollars — an amount the country cannot bear amid economic turmoil, soaring inflation, and renewed United Nations sanctions.

Notably, the Iranian regime has focused its resources on bolstering its military and nuclear programs rather than addressing the country’s water crisis, a choice that has left citizens’ needs unmet while advancing its agenda against Israel.

The regime has also spent billions of dollars supporting its terrorist proxies across the region and operations abroad, with the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, funneling funds to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in defiance of international sanctions.

According to the US Treasury Department, Iran has provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah so far this year alone, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the terrorist group, using a “shadow financial system” to transfer funds to Lebanon.

Iran also provides weapons, training, logistical support, and political backing to the group along with other proxies, including Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, various militias in Iraq and Syria, and other Islamist entities.