Erdogan’s Iran sanctions order fuels anger and debate over Ankara motives

Both countries have condemned the Council’s decision, leading some in Iran to hope the rhetorical rejection will be followed by action.

“China and Russia currently intend either not to implement the resolutions under Resolution 2231 or to apply them selectively,” political analyst Mehdi Kharatian said in a post on X.

Former diplomat Kourosh Ahmadi put forward ways in which the duo could help Iran.

“China and Russia can play an effective role in reducing the impact of reinstated UN resolutions in three areas,” he wrote in the reformist daily Shargh, “preventing the implementation of the six reactivated resolutions, obstructing the work of the Sanctions Committee … and blocking any new measures.”

Obstruct sanctions

Ahmadi asserted that decisions in the Committee require consensus, enabling Beijing and Moscow to delay appointments, hinder panel functions, and limit enforcement—as they did on occasion in relation to North Korea.

Another former diplomat, Nosratollah Tajik, struck a more hopeful tone.

“China and Russia… can use existing legal mechanisms within the United Nations to obstruct the implementation of sanctions,” he told moderate outlet Jamaran.

In a joint letter to the UNSC president on September 28, China and Russia, together with Iran, argued that the snapback move by the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) was “inherently flawed both legally and procedurally,” branding it “null and void.”

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia declared on October 1: “We’ll be living in two parallel realities, because for some snapback happened, for us it didn’t.”

Invest in Iran

Alongside legal avenues, some experts asserted, Russia and China could also try to neutralize the sanctions with hard cash.

Conservative politician Mansour Haghighatpour said Tehran and China could be looking at a new chapter in their economic cooperation if China takes “concrete steps to invest in and finance Iran’s infrastructure projects using the digital yuan.”

Such a move would prove that Beijing “will not allow imposed obstacles to block the implementation of ambitious initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative,” Haghighatpour argued in a piece for the moderate daily Etemad.

The optimism has been invariably met with doubt and even ridicule from ordinary Iranians on social media.

“Russia and China did not invest in Iran when we only had the US sanctions—so now they don’t recognize UN sanctions?” one user commented on X.

Another posted: “China buys only a small amount of oil from Iran … and it forces Iran to barter with Chinese goods! Humiliation higher than this?!”

‘They didn’t even abstain’

Bloomberg reported this week that Qingdao Port, a major Chinese oil terminal, plans measures targeting vessels transporting sanctioned Iranian oil, highlighting the limits of Beijing’s support.

Iran has signed strategic partnership treaties with Russia, a 20-year pact that took effect on October 2, and with China, a 25-year deal agreed in 2021 but still only partly implemented.

Some in Tehran are betting on these agreements.

“We are witnessing the emergence of a trilateral strategic partnership among Iran, Russia, and China, which could have significant implications for the balance of power,” academic Jalal Dehghani told the state-run Iran newspaper.

Another anonymous user on X reminded him of ominous precedents: “Russia and China voted in favor of all the sanctions resolutions between 2006 and 2011 … They didn’t even abstain!”

“Australia supports the decision of France, Germany and the UK (the E3) to trigger the ‘snapback’ mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231,” a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told Iran International.

The spokesperson said Iran must be held accountable for its “longstanding non-performance” of nuclear commitments under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Australia called on Iran to return to talks and reach a diplomatic solution “which provides assurances that it can never develop a nuclear weapon.”

Canberra said it is obliged under international law to implement Security Council sanctions and will do so through amendments to domestic regulations, which may take time.

New Zealand’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply concerned” about Iran’s non-compliance and that work was underway on regulatory changes.

“As a UN Member State, New Zealand is bound to implement sanctions imposed by the UNSC,” the ministry said in a statement. “We advise New Zealanders to apply heightened due diligence in reviewing any ongoing transactions during this interim period.”

The United Nations sanctions, reimposed on Sept. 28, include restrictions on Iran’s nuclear and military activities, asset freezes on designated entities, and a duty to “exercise vigilance” when doing business with Iran.

Western powers say Iran left no choice

France, Germany and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement the reimposition of sanctions was unavoidable after Iran’s “persistent breaches” of the 2015 nuclear deal, citing enriched uranium stockpiles 48 times above agreed limits.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the sanctions were a “serious mistake” by Tehran’s rulers that harmed ordinary Iranians, but added diplomacy was still possible. “Iran must never come into possession of a nuclear weapon,” he told Funke media group, urging a “negotiated solution to resolve this issue permanently.”

The European Union also reinstated sweeping restrictions this week on Iran’s oil, banking, transport and trade sectors. Tehran has rejected the sanctions as illegal and said all restrictions under Resolution 2231 must expire on October 18.

The renewed restrictions are biting deep into society, yet they are ultimately the result of Tehran’s own policies, economist Mahdi Ghodsi told Eye for Iran.

“In the past 10 years, the real income of Iranians has been halved. The middle class has become poor and the poor cannot live under these conditions,” he said.

“I consider sanctions as the effect of bad management, bad policy and bad governance. If you think about the benefits of your own people, you don’t impose policies that attract sanctions,” he added.

Iranians themselves are pointing the finger at their leaders, analyst Holly Dagres said.

“You’re hearing chants from retirees, you’re hearing labor unions saying enough — stop blaming sanctions and inflation. This is all on you. The West is not the problem here. You’re the problem,” said Dagres, a fellow at the The Washington Institute think tank.

Currency tank

The rial has collapsed to 1,170,000 to the US dollar — or 117,000 tomans on the free market — the weakest in Iran's history.

Iran’s Central Bank Governor blamed the plunge on an “enemy’s psychological war,” but for families, it has meant soaring costs for food, rent, and medicine. The broad scope of the new sanctions, covering oil, banking and dual-use goods, is already eroding purchasing power across the country.

The volatility is also taking a psychological toll.

“People are constantly checking the exchange rate, they’re constantly checking the gold rate,” Dagres said. “It’s like a stock market for them, because they know that tomorrow their bread or their rent or their medicine could cost more.”

The so-called snapback of United Nations sanctions was welcomed on October 1 by the foreign ministers of the G7 countries, joined by the EU’s High Representative.

Tehran was accused of failing to meet its nuclear obligations, and urged to return to direct talks with Washington. The measures restore sweeping restrictions first imposed between 2006 and 2010, which had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The United States, European Union, and allies including Canada and Japan have also moved to reimpose their own measures.

Research highlights how devastating such measures have been. Sanctions between 2012 and 2019 shrank Iran’s middle class by up to 28 percentage points compared with a no-sanctions scenario, according to a study by Mohammad Reza Farzanegan of Philipps-Universität Marburg and Nader Habibi of Brandeis University, published in the European Journal of Political Economy.

Sanctions “laid waste” to the very group that once drove reform and moderation in Iran, the authors wrote in an op-ed published by Al Jazeera.

War fears

The sanctions appear to deepen an impasse that may culminate in more war.

"The specter of war is still on Iran. Iranian airspace is still under control of Israel and the United States, Ghodsi said. "Either the Iranian government will try to resolve all these issues or the tensions will escalate soon."

Dagres said average Iranians are fearful of another war and its attendant death and displacement, but Tehran's hard line hard line may augur another conflict.

"To me, it seems like things are not changing in the view of the Islamic Republic. And the way that things are going, it does look like a path to confrontation."

You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on any podcast platform of your choosing like Castbox, Spotify, Apple or Amazon Music.

Iran, slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and senior Hamas leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh "were unaware of the October 7 attack,” said Esmail Qaani, head of the foreign operations wing of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Quds Force.

Israel has accused Iran of orchestrating the October 7 attacks, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that Tehran funded, trained and planned the assault as the culmination of its longstanding support for Hamas.

Successor to Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, Qaani has mostly maintained a low profile and survived serial Israeli assassinations of IRGC commanders during a surprise military campaign in June.

According to Qaani, Haniyeh was preparing for a trip to Iraq when he was surprised to learn of the assault on Israel by Hamas. Haniyeh, a senior Palestinian politician and Hamas’s political leader, served as chairman of the group from 2017 until his assassination by Israel in Tehran in July 2024.

Qaani said he traveled to Lebanon on the afternoon of October 7 and met Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to discuss next steps.

“During the meeting, Nasrallah decided to launch attacks on Israel on October 8,” he said, noting that a large number of Lebanese civilians were holidaying away from homes in southern Lebanon at the time.

On October 8, Hezbollah fired rockets and artillery at multiple Israeli military sites in northern Israel, including around the disputed Shebaa Farms in solidarity with Hamas. Israel responded with heavy artillery fire.

The Jewish State carried out multiple strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, including pager explosions in September 2024 that killed more than 30 Hezbollah commanders.

Later that month, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, including Nasrallah. A subsequent air campaign and ground incursion killed over 3,000 people.

Hezbollah disarmament

Qaani added that if Israel could disarm or destroy Hezbollah militarily, it would have continued fighting without pause, but instead Israel requested a ceasefire to regroup.

“While some Israeli officials prematurely claimed Hezbollah’s destruction, battlefield realities showed otherwise,” he said.

Lebanon’s government has unveiled plans to disarm Hezbollah by the end of 2025, aiming to make the Lebanese Armed Forces the country’s sole armed force even as Israel maintains an armed presence in parts of the country's south.

Hezbollah, with backing from Iran, has resisted handing over its weapons.

Renaz Ebrahimi, 34, holds Finnish citizenship - one of the many nationalities represented on board the so-called Global Sumud Flotilla, which includes participants from various countries including Spain, Italy, Turkey and Malaysia.

In a video transmitted on Instagram, she appears to narrate the moment of her detention by Israeli forces while labeling its incursion into Gaza a genocide.

Israel denies the charge and has accused the activists of performing propaganda for Hamas militants.

She was aboard the Polish-flagged Marinette with six crew members, which was stopped 49 miles from Gaza's coastline.

On social media, Ebrahimi identifies herself as a journalist and activist, with a series of videos in Finnish about the recent flotilla movement to Gaza.

The Israeli navy stopped the flotilla, detained those on board on charges of attempting to cross a blockade, and is currently in the process of deporting them.

The flotilla launched in July 2025 as a humanitarian aid mission to break Israel's blockade of the coastal enclave. It started with 44 vessels, all of which have now been stopped by Israeli forces.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which has organized several such missions since 2008, released a statement upon the interception by the Israeli navy, vowing to continue their efforts.

“We stand with every human rights defender aboard. Their courage is part of our shared struggle to end Israel’s deadly siege,” the statement said.

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, was also among those detained.

Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007 after Hamas took control of the territory. The aim was to prevent weapons smuggling and restrict Hamas’s military capabilities.