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Iranian Judiciary Says Panahi Must Serve Six-year Sentence

In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
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Iranian Judiciary Says Panahi Must Serve Six-year Sentence

In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on August 30, 2010 Iranian film director Jafar Panahi on a balcony overlooking Tehran during an interview with AFP. (AFP)

Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, arrested last week in Tehran, must serve a six-year sentence previously handed to him in 2010, the judicial authority announced Tuesday.

Panahi, 62, has won a number of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018.

He is the third director to be detained this month, alongside Mostafa Aleahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film "There Is No Evil".

"Panahi had been sentenced in 2010 to a total of six years in prison... and therefore he was entered into Evin detention center to serve his sentence there", judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told reporters, according to AFP.

He was arrested in 2010, following his support for anti-government demonstrations.

He was convicted of "propaganda against the system", sentenced to six years in jail, banned from directing or writing films and blocked from leaving the country.

But he served only two months in jail in 2010, and was subsequently living on conditional release that could be revoked at any time.

Panahi was arrested again on July 11 after he went to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the situation of Rasoulof.

The arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.

Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country's products regularly win awards at major international festivals.

Panahi's detention has sparked condemnation from fellow filmmakers.

Cannes film festival organizers said they "strongly condemn" the arrests as well as "the wave of repression evidently under way in Iran against its artists".

The Venice film festival called for the "immediate release" of the directors, while the Berlin film festival said it was "dismayed and outraged" at the arrest.

France's foreign ministry on Friday expressed concern at the "arbitrary" arrests of the filmmakers, citing a "worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran".

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Trump Envoy Suggests Allied Zones of Control in Ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) welcomed US envoy Keith Kellogg at his offices in Kyiv on February 20. Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) welcomed US envoy Keith Kellogg at his offices in Kyiv on February 20. Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP
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Trump Envoy Suggests Allied Zones of Control in Ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) welcomed US envoy Keith Kellogg at his offices in Kyiv on February 20. Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) welcomed US envoy Keith Kellogg at his offices in Kyiv on February 20. Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP

Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, suggested British and French troops could adopt zones of control in the country, in an interview with The Times newspaper published Saturday.
Kellogg suggested they could have areas of responsibility west of the Dnipro river, as part of a "reassurance force", with a demilitarized zone separating them from Russian-occupied areas in the east.
"You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War II, when you had a Russian zone, a French zone, and a British zone, a US zone," he said, later clarifying on X that the United States would not be providing troops.

"You're west of the (Dnipro), which is a major obstacle," Kellogg said, adding that the force would therefore "not be provocative at all" to Russia.

He suggested that a demilitarized zone could be implemented along the existing lines of control in eastern Ukraine, The Times said.

A retired lieutenant general and former acting national security advisor during Trump's first term, Kellogg, 80, said Ukraine was big enough to accommodate several armies seeking to enforce a ceasefire.

To make sure that British, French, Ukrainian and other allied forces do not exchange fire with Russian troops, Kellogg said a buffer zone would be needed.

"You look at a map and you create, for lack of a better term, a demilitarized zone (DMZ)," he said.

"You have a... DMZ that you can monitor, and you've got this... no-fire zone," said Kellogg.

But he added: "Now, are there going to be violations? Probably, because there always are. But your ability to monitor that is easy."

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kellogg admitted that Russian President Vladimir Putin "might not accept" the proposal.

'Reassurance force'
Kellogg later clarified his position, posting on X.

"I was speaking of a post-ceasefire resiliency force in support of Ukraine's sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I was referencing areas or zones of responsibility for an allied force (without US troops). I was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine," he said.

Britain and France are spearheading talks among a 30-nation "coalition of the willing" on potentially deploying forces to Ukraine to shore up any ceasefire Trump may strike.

London and Paris describe the possible deployment as a "reassurance force" aimed at offering Ukraine some kind of security guarantee.

But many questions remain unanswered, from the size of any force, to who would contribute, what the mandate would be and whether the United States would back it up.

Putin, in power for 25 years and repeatedly elected in votes with no competition, has often questioned Volodymyr Zelensky's "legitimacy" as president, after the Ukrainian leader's initial five-year mandate ended in May 2024.

Under Ukrainian law, elections are suspended during times of major military conflict, and Zelensky's domestic opponents have all said no ballots should be held until after the conflict.

"If you get to a ceasefire, you're going to have elections," said Kellogg.

"I think Zelensky is open to do that once you get to a ceasefire and once you get some resolution. But that's a call for the Ukrainian people in the Ukrainian parliament. Not ours."

Kellogg said relations between Ukraine and the United States were now "back on track", citing resumed talks over a proposed deal on Ukraine's mineral resources.

He said officials would try to turn a "business deal" into a "diplomatic deal" over the coming days.