Iranians crossing the country’s border with Turkey on Wednesday expressed widely differing views on the war, the cease-fire, and their government, but all voiced deep concern over an economic crisis they said was unfolding in the country.
At the Kapikoy border crossing in eastern Turkey, Moji, 38, was returning to Iran after several months in Europe. She had been under constant stress while away, she said, and worried about her family back in Iran who live in Urmia, close to the Turkish border. Like many of the Iranians who spoke to The New York Times, Moji declined to give her full name, for fear of reprisal by the Iranian government. Others refused to be identified entirely.
Many people at the border crossing did not want to speak to a reporter at all, or spoke only briefly. Several people said in interviews that they feared punishment by the state for expressing their views.
Moji said that, while she was abroad, an airstrike had struck near her parents’ home. Her friends in Urmia increasingly struggled to afford food, Moji said, because there was no work to be found and factories had been forced to close amid the strikes.
One couple, a husband and wife who work as garment makers, said the economic problems preceded the war, and they routinely went without work for over half the year. Another woman said that layoffs were increasing, and that her hopes were not that Iran became a democracy, but simply had a ruler who could create jobs and bring security to the country.
Milad, 37, from the city of Khoy in western Iran, was traveling to Turkey for a short family vacation. He expressed support for the Iranian government and its military performance during the war. “For us to persevere before a bully like this, it’s really a great thing,” he said, referring to the United States.
Milad pulled out his maroon-colored Iranian passport, saying that, in the past, when he showed it at border crossings, he was treated with disrespect, he said. “Not anymore,” he said. “Now they know what we are.”
One woman from the Iranian city of Tabriz, who crossed the border into Turkey on Wednesday to see her daughter, said that she hoped negotiations between Iran and the United States would ultimately fail. She implied that the war should continue so that the Iranian government would fall.
Moji, who was heading to see her family in Urmia, said she was glad the cease-fire had been extended, seeing it as relief for people who had been under intense pressure for months, starting with the deadly crackdown on protests in January and, after that, the war.
“Everyone wants something better to happen,” she said. “But unfortunately the path that unfolds for our people is not the right path and, in the end, that which should happen, doesn’t happen. People just suffer more mentally and have to pull back financially.”
Yeganeh Torbati is the Iran correspondent for The Times.
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