President Pezeshkian, who took office in July, said it was pointless to continue developing Tehran because the city was facing many difficulties.
The capital is suffering from "water shortages, land subsidence and air pollution among other problems," Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by Javan Online news agency.
"The capital Tehran is facing problems for which we have no solutions," the president admitted, stressing that the best way out of this situation is to "relocate the country's political and economic center."
"It will not work to just tell people that they should leave Tehran. The government must first go itself so that people will follow us," President Pezeshkian argued.
Mr Pezeshkian stressed that there were also economic reasons for finding a new capital closer to the Persian Gulf, through which major trade routes pass.
"It is impossible to develop the country further with the current trend, when we bring resources from the south and the sea to the center, turn them into products there and send them back to the south for export," the president argued.
Such a situation "seriously depreciates and reduces our competitiveness. We have no choice but to move the country's economic and political center to the south and closer to the sea," Mr. Pezeshkian stressed.
However, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who served as Mayor of Tehran in the 1990s, has opposed President Pezeshkian's idea, arguing that there is no suitable alternative to Tehran.
In an interview with Asr Iran news agency, the former mayor noted that some countries that have previously decided to move their capitals have lost money and had two cities with problems instead of one.
Tehran, the capital of Iran since 1786, is located in the north of the country, 100km from the Caspian Sea. The city is home to 9.4 million people, with nearly 17 million in the greater metropolitan area, making Tehran the largest city in Iran, West Asia, and the second largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, after Cairo, Egypt.
This is not the first time the Iranian government has proposed moving the capital away from Tehran. Similar proposals were made during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tenure from 2005 to 2013. At that time, parliament voted to form a special council to find an alternative city. However, a final decision on moving the capital was never made.
Mr Pezeshkian took office as Iran's president in late July after defeating his rival Saeed Jalili by 53.7% to 44.3% in the second round of voting earlier that month. The snap election was called after the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.
