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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had to seek permission from superiors to speak to US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, the New York Times reported on Wednesday citing an official deeply involved in the process.
The source was cited as saying the authority of Tehran's top diplomat appeared to be heavily constrained.
Araghchi ultimately conveyed Tehran's commitment that it was not planning imminent execution to the Untied States via a third party, the newspaper reported without elaborating.
Veteran theocrat Ali Khamenei is the country's supreme leader and ultimate decider of domestic and international policy.
As the threat of attack by the United States looms, Iranian commentators are sounding the alarm on the existential danger they see to Tehran, with one former envoy even saying US President Donald Trump should be hosted for talks.
Iran’s US- based former ambassador to Germany Hossein Mousavian said that the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian should invite Trump to Tehran as a step toward de-escalating tensions which could crescendo into an attack that threatens the Islamic Republic’s rule.
“Trump genuinely wants direct talks with Iran,” he told outlet Ensaf News in an interview.
“Pick up the phone and speak to him. Do not waste time as the situation is critically dangerous … I repeat: if you do not act immediately, Iran may face military confrontation with the United States, Israel, and NATO.”
In a more sober assessment, Iranian political commentator Reza Nasri warned “unlike his predecessors, Trump can wage a swift and clean war against Iran without imposing additional costs on US taxpayers or repeating past mistakes.”
Nasri warned against complacency about some Trump’s more conciliatory messaging, saying “any premature optimism about de-escalation can lead to dangerous miscalculations by lowering the state of alert and imposing heavy costs on Iran’s security.”
The US threat comes after Trump vowed to come to the defense of protestors before authorities unleashed one of the deadliest crackdowns on unrest in modern history, killing thousands.
Nasri, cleaving to the theocracy’s official discourse, described the demonstrations as “one of the most difficult and complex threats in Iran’s recent history and a project aimed at disintegrating the country and collapsing its political system.”
“This project has failed for now,” he added. “But a combination of domestic crisis, foreign threats and economic and psychological warfare still looms.”
Meanwhile, hardline Tehran commentator and social media personality Ali-Akbar Raefipour raised the alarm to an even louder pitch, saying without providing evidence that foreign preparations for a complex armed attack were already underway.
“Mutiny and targeted assassination cells may be activated if Iran is attacked. Their goals include killing prominent individuals and seizing sensitive centers,” he wrote on X.
“In recent days, we have seen equipment flowing into Iran for these groups.”
A Turkish national faces imminent execution in Iran after his third request for judicial review was rejected last week, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran said on Wednesday.
Sato said Hatem Özdemir, a Turkish national of Kurdish ethnicity, has been on death row since 2022 on a charge of baghi, or armed rebellion against the foundations of the Islamic Republic, following his arrest in 2019.
She said Özdemir denied engaging in armed activity and had been subjected to torture during interrogation, denied proper legal representation, and faced language barriers throughout his trial.
“The charges do not meet international standards for the use of the death penalty,” Mai Sato said in a statement.
“Despite the Supreme Court previously overturning his death sentence citing lack of evidence including participation in armed activity or intention to engage in armed activity, a retrial reinstated the death penalty based on contradictory new testimonies,” she added.
Iran’s internet, throttled for 20 days amid the mass killing of protesters, began to partially resume on Wednesday, according to monitoring groups and users inside the country, who said access remains heavily restricted and unstable.
Signs of reconnection were also observed on Sunday, they said, but restrictions were reimposed shortly afterward. The latest restoration appears broader but still falls well short of a full return to normal service.
NetBlocks, the internet freedom watchdog, reported that although Iran has restored some international connectivity, most websites remain blocked or unreliable unless users rely on circumvention tools like VPNs.
Most ordinary users still face heavy filtering and intermittent service under a whitelist system despite a significant increase in internationally visible networks and datacenters, NetBlocks said in a statement on X.
Whitelist refers to state-sanctioned access for officials or state bodies like banks. Iran's foreign minister and other senior officials have posted statements on social media throughout the shutdown.
Iranian authorities have said the internet outage which began on January 8 was imposed to control recent unrest, which officials blame on foreign interference and the activities of what they call “terrorists.”
The crackdown killed thousands of people and appears to rank among the deadliest attack on protestors in modern history.
Ali Akbar Pour-Jamshidian, deputy for security affairs at the Interior Ministry, addressed questions about when internet access would fully normalize by saying the Supreme National Security Council and the National Security Council had prioritized “public security” over economic considerations.
An uncertain digital future
Many data centers still lack stable internet access, and officials have yet to outline a clear timetable or framework for restoring full connectivity.
Milad Nouri, a programmer and internet expert, warned in comments to the news site Entekhab that the situation signals a deeper shift in network infrastructure. He said it shows the system has moved toward enabling permanent whitelist policies and “tiered internet” not just as a policy choice, but as a technical reality.
Tiered internet refers to granting access based on assessed “needs,” such as allowing media outlets controlled access to platforms like Telegram, while most other traffic remains blocked by default.
Economic damage mounts
The prolonged internet shutdown has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s economy.
Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi has estimated the economic cost of the shutdown at 50 trillion rials per day (roughly $50 million at open market rates).
Speaking on Tuesday, Hashemi acknowledged that domestic platforms cannot function independently of international connectivity and would face serious challenges over time.
“(Claiming) that there is no need for the global internet is only a bitter joke,” he said.
At the same time, Iran’s broader economic indicators have continued to deteriorate. As fears of a possible US or Israeli attack intensified, the national currency fell further, reaching a record low of 1,600,000 rials to the dollar on Wednesday.
The Statistical Center of Iran has announced that point-to-point inflation in January reached 60 percent, meaning households paid on average 60 percent more than a year earlier for an identical basket of goods and services. The Tehran Stock Exchange has also seen several consecutive days of declining share values.
Businesses under strain
Many companies are reportedly facing bankruptcy, while others have laid off employees or downsized operations.
The daily newspaper Haft-e Sobh has reported that newspapers are now filled with advertisements offering office desks and chairs for sale by recently shuttered companies.
Babak Aghili-Nasab, CEO of Postex, told the Digiato news outlet that his company’s order shipments dropped by 80 percent during the shutdown. He said the first and most immediate impact was forced layoffs, adding that he expects to lay off around 60 percent of his workforce starting this month.
While the government has said it will offer loans to compensate affected businesses, Aghili-Nasab rejected this approach, insisting that compensation should be provided as direct grants rather than debt. He said: “You have plundered our house and want to give us loans (to compensate)?”
International trade has also been disrupted. Companies have lost contact with foreign partners and customers, and some trucks carrying perishable goods into Iran have reportedly been stranded at border crossings.
Authorities recently provided limited international internet access at Iran’s Chamber of Commerce. long queues for supervised 20-minute sessions, after filling out written commitments.
For small and home-based businesses, especially those dependent on social commerce—which accounted for about 40 percent of Iran’s online retail sector last year—the outlook remains bleak.
Many have resumed activity after a month without sales, but say they have little hope of meaningful income under current conditions.
Amirhossein (Iman) Seyrafi, a former political prisoner and digital security expert previously accused of spying for the United States, has been arrested amid Iran’s sweeping crackdown on dissent, sources familiar with the matter told Iran International.
Seyrafi was detained on January 26 outside his home in Tehran, they said. Authorities have not issued any statement on his arrest.
An informed source told Iran International he has been accused of cooperating with Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad.
Seyrafi had previously been imprisoned on national security-related charges and was released in October 2020 after serving seven years in prison.
Iran’s judiciary had accused him of spying for the United States and “collaboration with a hostile government,” charges frequently used against political detainees, activists and individuals working in sensitive fields like IT.
Human rights organizations have identified Seyrafi as one of dozens of prisoners previously held in Ward 7 of Tehran’s Evin Prison, where detainees facing national security accusations are commonly imprisoned.
A 2019 report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) listed Seyrafi among prisoners charged under Iran’s penal code provisions related to espionage and alleged ties to “enemy states.”
But Seyrafi has also been referenced in international cybersecurity research examining Iran’s early hacker networks.
A report published in 2013 by the ICT Cyber Desk at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya in Israel identified Seyrafi — also known online as “Iman” or “iM4n” — as the first leader of a hacker group known as the “Emperor Team.”
The report credited him with involvement in the defacement of websites and subdomains belonging to major international platforms, including MSN and Yahoo.
Seyrafi and other members, it added, initially formed the group to gather information before later shifting into what he described in past interviews as “security activities,” including the development of basic cyber tools.
Some of the assertions cited in the report could not be independently verified.
Seyrafi’s rearrest comes amid increasing concern from rights advocates that Iranian authorities are treating digital expertise itself as a national security threat.
