On Turkey’s bustling border crossing with Iran, in a shed filled with boxes of cooking oil, a shopkeeper read aloud to his colleagues the latest news on his phone: Peace talks between the United States and Iran were postponed.
For these merchants, the twists and turns of the war, and economic crisis in Iran, have brought an unexpected boon to their business. As the prices of basic goods have spiraled in Iran, they can sell olive, sunflower and corn oils for a modest profit to Iranians at the border, who will either sell the oil inside their country or use it themselves.
Dozens of people were seen carrying multiple four- and five-liter bottles of oil as they walked from Turkey into Iran over the course of a single morning and afternoon. In interviews, shopkeepers said demand for cooking oil had spiked in recent days.
“We just started doing this recently,” said Maryam, an Iranian woman who purchased four bottles of cooking oil on Wednesday with her husband, intending to sell them back home. “Cooking oil is better” than the cigarettes the couple usually buy and sell across the border, she said, because it brings greater profit.
Maryam said she could buy a five-liter bottle in Turkey for a little over $10 and sell it inside Iran for cheaper than the going rate in shops there, making a small profit of around $2. She declined to give her full name, like most Iranians interviewed at the border, for fear of reprisal from the Iranian government.
Other Iranians interviewed did not want to be identified at all. The oil vendors in Turkey also spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they wanted the trade to remain discreet so that Turkish authorities would not put an end to it.
The Kapikoy land crossing, near the city of Van, in eastern Turkey, has provided one of the few durable links between Iranians and the outside world during the war. The country’s airspace has been closed for much of the past two months, though it reopened in recent days, and citizens have remained in the dark because of a continuing internet shutdown imposed by the government.
The sharp increase in the trade of cooking oil is a potent indication of a spiraling inflation crisis that has put pressure on Iranian households for years, and which appears to have become especially severe in recent months. The inflation rate in Iran projected by the International Monetary Fund for this year is nearly 70 percent, which would be the highest rate calculated by the I.M.F. for the country since at least 1980.
Iranians at the border crossing this past week complained about higher costs for food in the country, where the minimum wage is the equivalent of around $108 per month. Iran is also facing mass layoffs as a result of the disruptions of war and the internet shutdown.
The higher prices are a challenge for a government that has contended with several rounds of protests prompted by economic discontent in recent years, and which now must rebuild an economy whose major industrial centers have been destroyed in airstrikes.
The authorities suppressed the latest round of protests with a deadly crackdown in January. Since then, the government has executed protesters and intimidated Iranians into staying in their homes.
The price of cooking oil surged in Iran in January after the government removed subsidies on the imports of certain essential goods, a policy intended to cut state expenditures amid sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sales.
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the subsidy program had been exploited by some sectors, without reducing prices. And in the aftermath of the policy change, Iranians said in interviews that they were having trouble finding cooking oil in stores.
In a bid to ameliorate those price increases, the government gave Iranians a direct monthly cash payment, which amounted to 10 million Iranian rials, or around $7. Experts said that was unlikely to alleviate the pressure felt by most Iranians.
Milad, 37, from Khoy, who purchased cooking oil with his wife to take back to Iran, acknowledged that the subsidy reform had resulted in higher prices, but said it had been effective in limiting corrupt “mafias” who had taken advantage of the situation to make profit.
“Since prices have gone up, we’re buying this oil to take back with us,” he said.
Any relief provided by the cross-border trade is minimal relative to the pressure Iranians are facing.
A Tehran resident, Bibijan, 71, said she had recently bought three small chickens for about 22 million rials — around $14 at current rates. She said she used to be able to purchase five or six chickens for around five million rials.
One married couple who work as garment makers said that, even before the war, they had been out of work for at least half of the year. If Iranians continued to face such dim prospects, they said they expected many would begin stealing food to be able to feed their families.
Kiana Hayeri contributed reporting.
Yeganeh Torbati is the Iran correspondent for The Times.
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