Iran's hostile states, defeated in their sanctions policy, proceeded to directly destabilize the country, but failed in this as well, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said Thursday.

"When they (unfriendly states) faced defeat in this policy (of imposing sanctions), they started destabilizing Iran, but this policy also failed," Tasnim news agency quoted Raisi as saying.

Iran's unrest, which began in mid-September with the death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by the Iranian vice squad, has continued for a month and a half now. Protests and riots are taking place mainly in the provinces of Gilan, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchistan, Tehran, and Kurdistan.

Iranian authorities accuse Western countries of supporting the protesters, who in their media circulate messages of a subversive, anti-Iranian nature, as well as calling for the overthrow of the government in Iran. Rioters systematically attack and kill members of the security forces - police, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, Iran's elite military unit), and members of one of its major military structures, the Basij.