President Vladimir Putin is mediating in the Iran situation to try to quickly de-escalate tensions, the Kremlin said on Friday, after the Russian leader spoke to Israeli Prime Minister ​Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has pledged to overhaul Iran’s struggling economy, saying his government is “ready to listen to its people” after two weeks of increasingly violent nationwide demonstrations.

He asserted that he had received “reliable reports” indicating the authorities were facing “a severe shortage of mercenaries to confront the millions of people in the streets.”

During the first week of protests Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president elected under a tightly qualified franchise, described the demonstrators and their demands as legitimate and let them spread from the provinces into the big cities.

State media says one officer killed and 13 wounded in western Lorestan as protests continue and spread for a fourth day.

"The people should not allow rioters to disrupt society. The people should believe that we want to establish justice," President Masoud Pezeshkian said. | World News

Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian offered a hardening tone in an interview aired on Sunday after nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city into Sunday morning,