Iran International
Iran's presidential administration has proposed the remote and underdeveloped Makran region in southeastern Iran as a potential site for the country’s new capital, igniting widespread debate and controversy.
“The new capital will definitely be in the south, in the Makran region, and this matter is currently being worked on,” government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, however, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s Executive Deputy Jafar Ghaempanah told reporters that moving the capital to Makran was “only an idea,” adding that no timeline has been established for such a move.
Officials of the Pezeshkian government are the first to publicly propose the Makran region as a viable candidate for relocating the country’s political and administrative center.
The Makran region
Makran is a vast historical and geographical region rather than an official administrative division. It spans a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) coastal strip from southeastern Iran to south-east Pakistan. In Iran, Makran’s coastline lies along the Gulf of Oman, while the Pakistani portion extends along the Arabian Sea.
The Iranian part of Makran constitutes approximately one-fourth of the historical region and is primarily situated within Sistan and Baluchestan Province—Iran's largest but least developed and sparsely populated province. This coastline features several small ports, including Gwatar, Jask, and Sirik. The largest port, Chabahar, is one of Iran’s nine Free Trade-Industrial Zones.
Why relocate the capital?
Iran has been considering relocating its capital, Tehran, for over three decades due to various environmental and safety concerns. Among these are severe water shortages and pollution that threaten Tehran’s sustainability.
The most pressing issue, however, is Tehran's vulnerability to earthquakes. The city sits atop two major seismic fault lines, making it highly susceptible to devastating quakes that could obliterate Iran’s political, administrative, and economic hub in seconds.
In May 2015, the Iranian parliament passed a law tasking the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development with conducting studies to propose short-, mid-, and long-term plans for relocating the capital from Tehran. These studies were to be completed within two years but remain unfinished.
Past proposals for a new capital
In the past three decades, several cities including Shiraz, Esfahan, Hamedan, Semnan, the New City of Pardis in the south of Tehran, Bandar Abbas Port on the Persian Gulf, and Kashan have been proposed as suitable candidates for the future seat of government.
The current government, under President Masoud Pezeshkian, is the first to publicly propose the Makran region as a viable alternative. However, many Iranians reacting to the proposal expressed deep skepticism on social media. One major challenge is that the region is arid, and only expensive desalination of sea water can support the establishment of large city.
What makes Makran a potential candidate?
The Makran region offers potential as a site for Iran’s new capital due to certain geographical and economic advantages including the availability of abundant water resources and direct access to the Indian Ocean from beyond the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz through the Gulf of Oman (also called the Makran Sea).
Chabahar, Iran's only oceanic port on the shores of Makran, can provide a direct transit link to the markets of Afghanistan and Central Asia. Chabahar Free Economic Zone currently has two separate ports (Shahid Beheshti and Shahid Kalantari) with a combined capacity of handling several million tons of cargo a year.
The port city can provide India, and other countries, with an alternative to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Pakistan’s Gwadar which lies only about 170 kilometers west of Chabahar.
In May 2013, Iran and India signed an agreement for the development of the Chabahar Port. By 2016, India had pledged $2b of investment to link Chabahar to Central Asia and Afghanistan by rail.
The agreement was part of a trilateral arrangement involving Iran, India, and Afghanistan to establish a trade and transport corridor linking the three countries, bypassing Pakistan.
In the past few years, the project’s implementation has faced delays due to US sanctions which have severely impacted Iran’s economy. Despite these challenges, the US granted limited exemptions in November 2018, allowing specific activities through Chabahar to support Afghanistan's reconstruction and the transit of humanitarian aid.
However, Makran's proximity to open waters and the Pakistan border presents its own security challenges. Unlike Tehran, which is centrally located, hundreds of kilometers from borders and the threat of invasion, Makran could be exposed to seaborne threats and potential risks from the Pakistani military.
Relocating the capital to such an underdeveloped region amid Iran's current economic crisis is also widely seen as an unattainable goal. The project would require tens of billions of dollars—funds that the country simply does not have for such an ambitious undertaking.
