{"id":693008,"date":"2026-01-13T10:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693008\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T10:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:54:16","slug":"germanys-merz-says-irans-leadership-may-be-in-final-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/693008\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz says Iran\u2019s leadership may be in \u2018final days\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Iran\u2019s current leadership may be nearing its end amid mass protests across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a regime can only stay in power through the use of violence, then it is effectively finished,\u201d Merz said on Tuesday during a visit to Bengaluru in India. \u201cI assume that we may now be witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merz had already condemned the actions of Iranian security forces against peaceful protesters on Monday, describing them as \u201cdisproportionate\u201d and \u201cbrutal\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said Berlin was in contact with the United States and other European governments with the aim of ensuring \u201cthat there can be a peaceful transition to a democratic government in Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Trump says China and other countries trading with Iran to face additional 25% tariffs<\/p>\n

Trump says China and other countries trading with Iran to face additional 25% tariffs<\/p>\n

Iran has been gripped since December 28 by its most serious protest wave for years. What began as protests by shopkeepers over a sharp fall in the value of the Iranian rial and mounting economic hardship quickly spiralled into nationwide demonstrations against the country\u2019s hardline Islamic rulers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Iran\u2019s current leadership may be nearing its end amid mass protests across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[29621,9301,2574,3662,209244,195834,2000,299,1945,1824,730,774,209246,209245,202600,70208,14532,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-693008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-agence-france-presse","9":"tag-bengaluru","10":"tag-berlin","11":"tag-bloomberg","12":"tag-democratic-government","13":"tag-dpa","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-friedrich-merz","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-india","19":"tag-iran","20":"tag-iran-human-rights-ihrngo","21":"tag-iranian-leadership","22":"tag-iranian-rial","23":"tag-oslo","24":"tag-tehran","25":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115887424375596005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}