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Iranian Security Opens Fire on People Celebrating World Cup Defeat

Part of a video circulated on the Internet, showing Iranian actors, including actresses without a veil.
Part of a video circulated on the Internet, showing Iranian actors, including actresses without a veil.
    London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Iranian Security Opens Fire on People Celebrating World Cup Defeat

Part of a video circulated on the Internet, showing Iranian actors, including actresses without a veil.
Part of a video circulated on the Internet, showing Iranian actors, including actresses without a veil.

A human rights organization confirmed that at least one person was killed in the renewed Iranian protests, early on Wednesday, as Iranians took to the streets to celebrate the defeat of the their national football team in front of the United States.

Several Iranian cities witnessed protests to celebrate the exit of the Iranian national team from the World Cup.

Reports noted that the Iranian national team players were subjected to pressure from officers in the Revolutionary Guard after their first match against England, which they lost by six goals. The Iranian team tried to restore some of its balance in the match with Wales, winning 2-0, before being defeated by the US and eliminated from the world tournament.

After the defeat of the team, which some Iranians called the “national team of the Islamic Republic”, residents in north and west Tehran chanted slogans against the regime, while numerous videos on social networks showed the celebrations in roads and residential neighborhoods.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights confirmed the killing of Mahran Sammak, 27, during a festive gathering in the port of Anzali in the north of the country, noting that he was wounded in the head after security forces opened fire on the demonstrators. Reports said he was hit while driving his car.

Meanwhile, documents obtained by hackers from an agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard revealed that 84 percent of Iranians believe that the protests were the way out of the current situation.

The Black Reward group sent a number of secret letters, statements and recordings obtained from Fars agency.

One of the documents refers to a confidential news brief prepared by the agency for the commander of the Guard, Hossein Salami, and contains internal news, official statements and figures, including statistics on the protests.

The report says that 84 percent of Iranians believe that the protests are the way out of the current situation, and 56 percent believe that the demonstrations should continue. Fifty-one percent of Iranians demand “the freedom of the veil.”

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Lavrov: Russia’s Relations with Syria Are Strategic, We Don’t Want Weak Truce in Ukraine

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Vladislav Deinego, head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic, and Sergei Peresada, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, in Moscow, Russia February 25, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Vladislav Deinego, head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic, and Sergei Peresada, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, in Moscow, Russia February 25, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
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Lavrov: Russia’s Relations with Syria Are Strategic, We Don’t Want Weak Truce in Ukraine

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Vladislav Deinego, head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic, and Sergei Peresada, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, in Moscow, Russia February 25, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters)
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with Vladislav Deinego, head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic, and Sergei Peresada, deputy head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, in Moscow, Russia February 25, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the new ruler of Syria had called relations with Russia long standing and strategic and that Moscow shared this assessment.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria's new administration at both a diplomatic and military level.

On Ukraine, Lavrov said Russia sees no point in a weak ceasefire to freeze the war in Ukraine, but Moscow wants a legally binding deal for a lasting peace that would ensure the security of both Russia and its neighbors.

"A truce is a path to nowhere," Lavrov said, adding that Moscow suspected such a weak truce would be simply used by the West to re-arm Ukraine.

"We need final legal agreements that will fix all the conditions for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbors," Lavrov said.

He added that Moscow wanted the legal documents drafted in such a way to ensure "the impossibility of violating these agreements."

Reuters reported last month that President Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Donald Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.

Putin said last week that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with US President-elect Donald Trump on ending the war and had no conditions for starting talks with the Ukrainian authorities.

Putin said the fighting was complex, so it was "difficult and pointless to guess what lies ahead... (but) we are moving, as you said, towards solving our primary tasks, which we outlined at the beginning of the special military operation."

Trump, who has repeatedly said he will end the war, said on Sunday that Putin wanted to meet with him. Russia says there have been no contacts with the incoming Trump administration.

Trump's Ukraine envoy, Retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, will travel to Kyiv and several other European capitals in early January as the next administration tries to bring a swift end to the Russia-Ukraine war, according to two sources with knowledge of the trip's planning.

"I really hope that the administration of Mr. Trump, including Mr. Kellogg, will get involved in the root causes of the conflict. We are always ready for consultations," Lavrov said.

Putin says an arrogant West led by the United States ignored Russia's post-Soviet interests, tried to pull Ukraine into its orbit since 2014 and then used Ukraine to fight a proxy war aimed at weakening - and ultimately destroying - Russia.

After a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine's 2014 Maidan Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea and began giving military support to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The West says Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was an imperial-style land grab by Moscow that has strengthened the NATO military alliance and weakened Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Ukraine's membership of NATO is "achievable", but that Kyiv will have to fight to persuade allies to make it happen.

Moscow says the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO was one of the principal justifications for its invasion. Russia has said it any NATO membership for Ukraine would make any peace deal impossible.