Iran says it will resist Western pressure even if it means war

The allegation was “so absurd and baseless that our embassy initially saw no need to respond,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, adding that both the Mexican foreign ministry and its intelligence agencies had confirmed there was no such case.

“This is part of the Zionist regime’s ongoing effort to destroy Iran’s friendly relations with other states,” he told reporters at his weekly press briefing in Tehran.

Trump ‘confession’ filed at UN

Baghaei also said Iran has officially submitted US president Donald Trump’s recent comments to the United Nations as evidence of Washington’s involvement in Israeli military actions against Iran.

“This admission of a crime establishes the full responsibility of the US government,” he said. Iran is working with its judiciary and the president’s legal office to pursue international proceedings, Baghaei added.

Last week, Trump said he directed Israel’s strike on Iran during the June conflict. “Israel attacked first. That attack was very, very powerful. I was very much in charge of that,” US president told reporters last week.

Tehran, Baghaei said, is also documenting what it calls US and Israeli aggression for future legal use.

“We are seriously pursuing the documentation of the military aggression by the Israeli regime and the United States, and we are also examining all available international mechanisms to seek justice and file a complaint against the US,” he added.

Iran on agenda for IAEA meeting

On the nuclear file, Baghaei said it was not unusual for Iran’s nuclear activities to appear on the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s next Board of Governors meeting, adding that Western powers may seek to use the session to renew political pressure.

He also dismissed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent comments accusing Iran and Russia of undermining international rules.

“Most of the actions carried out by NATO members themselves are the very ones they accuse others of committing. This requires no analysis – one only needs to look at the facts to see which side has violated international law and the UN Charter: Iran or the NATO member states,” he said, adding that the alliance’s interventions in Afghanistan and beyond had repeatedly breached international law.

Inspectors visit nuclear sites

IAEA inspectors, Baghaei said, visited several Iranian nuclear facilities last week, including the Tehran Research Reactor. Any further inspection requests, he added, would be reviewed “in coordination with the Supreme National Security Council.”

His remarks followed IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s statement to France 24 that Iran still holds highly enriched uranium and the technical capacity to build a nuclear weapon despite recent Israeli and US attacks on its facilities.

Sanctions relief

Asked about Trump’s separate remark that Iran had requested the lifting of sanctions from Washington, Baghaei said lifting sanctions remains a “legitimate demand of the Iranian people” rather than a gesture of goodwill by Washington.

“These sanctions have been unjustly imposed on every Iranian for decades, and their humanitarian impact amounts to a crime against humanity,” he said.

Iran continues to insist on the removal of what it calls “unlawful restrictions” as a prerequisite in any future negotiations with Western powers, he added.

Cyber Toufan, a group believed to be linked to the Iranian state, claimed responsibility for the breach and released 3D renderings and technical blueprints of the Redback vehicles on Telegram.

The hackers said the data was obtained during a broader campaign that targeted 17 Israeli defense contractors after infiltrating supply-chain firm MAYA Technologies last year.

Among the affected companies was Israel’s Elbit Systems, which supplies weapons turrets for the Redback fleet under a separate $920 million contract.

The leaked material includes internal Australian Defense Force discussions about potential purchases of Israel’s Spike NLOS anti-tank missiles.

It remains unclear how much information was stolen or whether the data could be used to compromise the Redback’s systems.

The Redback project, developed with South Korea’s Hanwha Defense, will deliver 129 next-generation combat vehicles to the Australian Army, with construction taking place in Geelong, southwest of Melbourne.

Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who announced the project last week, defended Elbit’s role despite criticism over Israel’s war in Gaza. “We make no apology for getting the best possible equipment for the Australian Defense Force,” he said.

The breach highlights an escalating pattern of cyberattacks on global defense networks.

The Australian Signals Directorate warned in its 2025 Cyber Threat Report that government and military data remain key targets for state-sponsored actors.

“The water reserves of Mashhad’s dams have now dropped to below three percent, and although water consumption has somewhat decreased in the cold season, the current situation shows that consumption management is no longer just a recommendation, but an obligation,” managing director of the Mashhad Water and Wastewater Company, said in an interview with the state-affiliated Mehr News Agency.

“Total precipitation in Mashhad county has so far amounted to only 0.4 millimeters, while last year it was around 27 to 28 millimeters,” Hossein Esmaeilian added.

Esmaeilian said the exceptionally low rainfall highlights the worsening state of water resources across northeastern Iran.

Shifting responsibility onto the public

In recent weeks, as the water crisis has worsened, several Iranian officials have blamed the problem on public overconsumption, urging citizens to "pray for rain" and show greater "moral discipline."

Esmaeilian’s remarks came on the same day Iran’s energy minister, Abbas Aliabadi, announced nightly water cuts across the country and urged residents to install home water storage systems.

However, the cost of purchasing and installing home storage systems is beyond the reach of many Iranians, and earlier Iranian media reports said prices for the equipment have risen since the government urged the public to buy them.

Esmaeilian said the top priority now is for residents to save and manage water use to avoid supply disruptions over the next one to two months while hoping for rainfall later in the year.

He added that current water consumption in Mashhad stands at about 8,000 liters per second, of which only between 1,000 and 1,500 liters per second come from the dams.

He said that if residents could reduce their consumption by around 20 percent, it would be possible to manage the situation without water rationing or supply cuts.

Last week, Hassan Hosseini, deputy governor and special governor of Mashhad, said the government is reviewing a water rationing plan and that, if the drought continues, regional rationing will begin before the end of autumn.

Despite repeated warnings from experts over the years, Iran’s water management system has focused on building dams and drilling deep wells instead of investing in and maintaining infrastructure, often blaming the crisis solely on declining rainfall.

Alireza Raisi said the deaths were linked to exposure to fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns, known as PM2.5 — tiny airborne particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream.

“Twenty-three percent were due to ischemic heart disease, 21 percent to lung cancer, 17 percent to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 15 percent to stroke, and 13 percent to lower respiratory infections,” he said.

Raisi said the economic damage caused by deaths attributed to air pollution was estimated at about $17.2 billion in 2024.

“These damages are equivalent to $47 million per day," he said.

Raisi said the average daily concentrations of fine particles in the country’s major cities are far higher than the World Health Organization’s permissible limits.

A day earlier, Iran's vice-president for science, technology, and knowledge-based economy Hossein Afshin warned about the consequences of air pollution especially in industrial regions.

Afshin said the central province of Isfahan has the highest number of cancer and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in the country, adding that the operation of old power plants in the region increases particulate matter and worsens pollution.

“When power plants of this age operate in Isfahan province, the amount of particulate matter in the air also increases,” he said.

Khuzestan province worst hit

Raisi said Ahvaz, a city in southwest Iran, recorded the highest annual average concentration of PM2.5 at 42 micrograms per cubic meter — about eight times the WHO guideline of 5 micrograms per cubic meter — followed by Isfahan, Tehran, and Arak.

In Khuzestan province, air pollution killed 1,624 people over the past year and caused $427 million in health-sector losses, according to Mehrdad Sharifi, deputy for health at Ahvaz Jundishapur University.

He said the air in the cities of Ahvaz, Dasht-e Azadegan, and Hoveyzeh had been healthy for only two days in recent months, adding that 22,000 patients sought hospital treatment in October due to pollution-related illnesses.

Khuzestan’s deputy governor said on Sunday that schools in most cities of the province will remain online until around mid-November, while high schools will continue in person.

Calls to ban old vehicles, invest in cleaner energy, and empower a central environmental authority have so far gone unanswered. Critics warn that without systemic change, major cities including Tehran will continue to suffer both in air quality and human lives.

"No water rationing — the scheduled and announced distribution and supply of water on a rotating basis — has so far been implemented in Tehran or any other city in the country," the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars News reported citing the National Water and Wastewater Company.

Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi on Sunday called the nightly pressure cuts a temporary management tool to stabilize the city’s aging water network and reduce leakage. Similar steps taken during the summer, he said, conserved significant volumes.

The measure, in effect from midnight until early morning, is designed to conserve supplies and reduce network losses, the spokesperson for Iran’s water industry, Issa Bozorgzadeh, said.

“We lower water pressure from midnight until around dawn to reduce urban leakage and allow reservoirs to refill,” he said.

The energy minister said on Saturday “Tehran's water pipeline system is more than 100 years old and worn-out."

"During the 12-day war (with Israel in June), the pipelines also suffered damage, which further added to the deterioration. We are sometimes forced to reduce water pressure to zero on certain nights.”

Residents report repeated disruptions

Households across eastern and northern Tehran have reported recurring water cuts and sharp pressure drops in recent nights, according to IRNA. Residents told the outlet that the disruptions have become routine. Many apartment buildings have installed small pumps and storage tanks to mitigate the problem, while others without such systems face hours-long outages.

Inflow to Tehran’s dams has dropped by 43 percent compared with the previous water year, Behzad Parsa, managing director of the Tehran Regional Water Company, told IRNA. Parsa described the situation as unprecedented in decades, attributing it to a 100-percent decrease in rainfall in Tehran province compared with long-term averages.

Expert links crisis to long-term relocation plans

President Masoud Pezeshkian’s repeated focus on Tehran’s water crisis serves two purposes, Water and environmental expert Mohsen Mousavi-Khansari wrote in a piece on Etemad daily.

“The first is to encourage conservation among citizens and to prompt coordinated planning among agencies responsible for water supply, distribution, and use. The second is to prepare public opinion in Tehran and other major cities on the central plateau for the eventual transfer of part of the population and infrastructure toward Iran’s southern coasts.”

He linked this to Pezeshkian’s proposal to relocate the capital to the Makran region.