Iran has begun to restore internet access – a sign that the longest such shutdown in history is beginning to ease amid a diplomatic push to end the war with the United States.
Monitoring group NetBlocks said there was a “partial restoration” on Tuesday after 88 days of an almost complete outage of the national grid, showing that connectivity had risen from near zero to about 35 percent of usual levels.
“In line with the mission of the honorable president and in fulfillment of the government’s promise, the first step towards free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken,” First Vice President Mohammad Reza Arif, who heads the government’s special task force for regulation and governance of cyberspace, said on social media.
The body voted on Monday in favor of restoring access to pre-January 2026 levels, but it was not clear whether its decision would be implemented after the court halted the work of the task force hours later, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Iranian civilian officials have repeatedly called for an easing of the restrictions, which have crippled businesses across the country, but have been overruled by the country’s powerful security establishment.
This development coincides with the diplomatic efforts made by Tehran and Washington to reach an agreement aimed at ending the conflict between them, which led to the deaths of thousands of Iranians and caused an energy shock that disrupted the global economy.
