In a video message on the occasion of the Iranian New Year (Nowrouz) on March 21, the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has said that he considers the Islamic Republic the "primary impediment in remediation and containing the [coronavirus] crisis".

Coronavirus has claimed at least 1,135 lives and infected more than 17,000 so far. Many believe that the numbers are much higher than what has officially been announced.

In his message Prince Reza Pahlavi described the crisis as "biological" and said the epidemic has further complicated the "current political, military, nuclear, economic, moral, financial and public welfare crises" and is driving the country towards "collapse".

"The primary barrier to the prevention and remediation of these crises is the regime itself," he said and described the Islamic Republic a "failed state" that is unable to provide the most elementary public services, lacks legitimacy, suffers unending economic crises, is drowning in pervasive corruption and does not have the ability to establish normal relations with other countries.

"The unhealthy relations [of the Islamic Republic] with other countries make any form of helpful and timely with other nations impossible," Reza Pahlavi said.

"At such impasses, the chronic inefficiency of the system and the widespread corruption of its officials worsen the situation," he went on to say in his address to Iranian people and charged that "any expectation of a change in behavior from the parasite which has latched onto the life of the country is not only futile but also dangerous".

Prince Reza Pahlavi called on Iranians to recognize the urgency eliminating "the principal infection", that is, the Islamic Republic.

"This year I will not celebrate the New Year, he said and told Iranians he will be observing a moment of silence, both in his own solitude and with his family, in the memory of all those who lost their lives to coronavirus and other natural disasters as well as anti-regime protests in the "black year".