Posted by Updated / Tuesday, 13 Jan 2026 08:32
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that Iran’s regime was living out its last days, as pressure grew on the Islamic republic over protests that have reportedly killed hundreds of people.
“When a regime can only hold on to power through violence, then it is effectively finished,” Mr Merz told reporters in Bengaluru, during a visit to India.
“I believe that we are now witnessing the last days and weeks of this regime.”
Sparked by economic grievances, nationwide protests have grown into one of the biggest challenges yet to the theocratic system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution ousted the shah.
Iranian authorities have blamed foreign interference for stoking the unrest and staged their own nationwide counter-rallies.
Rights groups warned that the severed communications aim to mask a rising death toll.
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 648 people have been killed during the protests, including nine minors.
But it warned the death toll was likely much higher – “according to some estimates more than 6,000”.
The internet shutdown has made it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports”, IHR said, adding that an estimated 10,000 people had been arrested.
US President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on any country that does business with Iran.
Mr Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, said in a social media post that the new levies would “immediately” hit the Islamic republic’s trading partners who also do business with the United States.
“Effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Tariffs are paid by US importers of goods from those countries.
Iran has been heavily sanctioned by the US for years.
“This order is final and conclusive,” he wrote, without specifying who they will affect.
Iran’s main trading partners are China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, according to economic database Trading Economics.
There was no official documentation from the White House of the policy on its website, nor information about the legal authority Mr Trump would use to impose the tariffs, or whether they would be aimed at all of Iran’s trading partners.
Iran, which had a 12-day war with US ally Israel last year and whose nuclear facilities the US military bombed in June, is seeing its biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
Mr Trump has said the US may meet Iranian officials and that he was in contact with Iran’s opposition, while piling pressure on its leaders, including threatening military action.
He has been mulling his options on Iran, which has been hit by more than two weeks of demonstrations that have defied a near-total internet blackout and lethal force.
The White House said Mr Trump remained “unafraid” to deploy military force against Iran, but was pursuing diplomacy as a first resort.
Iran sought to regain control of the streets yesterday with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated.
In power since 1989 and now 86, Mr Khamenei said the pro-government turnout was a “warning” to the United States.
“These massive rallies, full of determination, have thwarted the plan of foreign enemies that were supposed to be carried out by domestic mercenaries,” he said, according to state TV, referring to pro-government demonstrations.
In the capital Tehran, state TV showed people brandishing the national flag and prayers read for victims of what the government has termed “riots”.
At Enghelab Square, or Revolution Square, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told the crowd that Iran was fighting a “four-front war” listing economic war, psychological war, “military war” with the United States and Israel, and “today a war against terrorists” – a reference to the protests.
Flanked by the slogans “Death to Israel, Death to America” in Persian, he vowed the Iranian military would teach Mr Trump “an unforgettable lesson” if attacked.
But Mr Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s leadership had called him seeking “to negotiate”.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told a conference of foreign ambassadors in Tehran that Iran was “not seeking war but is fully prepared for war”, while calling for “fair” negotiations.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said a channel of communication was open between Mr Araghchi and Mr Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff despite the lack of diplomatic relations.
State outlets were at pains to present a picture of calm returning in Tehran, broadcasting images of smooth-flowing traffic.
Tehran Governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian insisted in televised comments that “the number of protests is decreasing”.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies.
The government has declared three days of national mourning for those killed.
The European Union has voiced support for the protesters and said yesterday it was “looking into” imposing additional sanctions on Iran over the repression of demonstrations.
The European Parliament also announced it had banned all Iranian diplomats and representatives from the assembly’s premises.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he would favour additional sanctions on Iran given the repression of protests there by the government.
He said: “I think we need an end to the repression that’s going on in Iran.
“It’s a very repressive regime, anti-democratic, very authoritarian, that undermined the rights of women for quite a long time.”
Mr Martin said yesterday that sanctions “have had an impact economically on Iran and continue to have an impact”.
“I would prefer additional sanctions. I think the outside world needs to be very careful that we don’t indirectly give sort of succour to the administration,” he added.
French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement condemning “the state violence that indiscriminately targets Iranian women and men who courageously demand respect for their rights”.
Tehran ally Russia, for its part, criticised what it called attempts by “foreign powers” to interfere in Iran, state media reported, in Moscow’s first reaction to the protests.
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