Iran

Iran's president committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions on Tuesday, state media reported, amid U.S. worries that Tehran is supplying Moscow missiles to hit Ukraine.

Russia's top security official Sergei Shoigu arrived in the Iranian capital days after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. More than two and a half years into its conflict with Ukraine, Moscow has been seeking to develop ties with the two nations, both hostile to the United States.

"My government will seriously follow ongoing cooperation and measures to upgrade the level of relations between the two countries," the state IRNA news agency quoted Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as telling Shoigu, Secretary of Russia's Security Council.

"Relations between Tehran and Moscow will develop in a permanent, continuous and lasting way. Deepening and strengthening relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia will reduce the impact of sanctions.”

The United States views Moscow's growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine.

Iran has denied sending ballistic missiles to Russia. Moscow has said only that Iran is Russia's partner in all possible areas.

Shoigu's trips are taking place at a crucial moment in the war, as Kyiv presses the United States and its allies to let it use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets such as airfields deep inside Russian territory.

President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western countries would be fighting Russia directly if they gave the green light, and that Moscow would respond.

The Nour news agency, affiliated to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Shoigu met his Iranian opposite number, Ali Akbar Ahmadian. There was no immediate information on the outcome of the meeting.

Russia has repeatedly said it is close to signing a major agreement with Iran to seal a strategic partnership between the two countries.

Shoigu was Russian defense minister until May, when he was appointed secretary of the Security Council that brings together President Vladimir Putin's military and intelligence chiefs and other senior officials.

Apart from meeting North Korea's Kim last week, he also held talks in St. Petersburg with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Monday urged the international community to act to end the oppression of women in Iran, two years after the start of a women-led protest movement.

"I call on international institutions and people around the world... to take active action," she said in a letter written in Tehran's Evin prison on Saturday, and published by her foundation on Monday.

"I urge the United Nations to end its silence and inaction in the face of the devastating oppression and discrimination by theocratic and authoritarian governments against women by criminalizing gender apartheid," she said.

The "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests were sparked by the death in custody of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd called Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, after she was arrested for allegedly breaching the country's strict dress code for her gender.

Mohammadi — who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the headscarf for women and the death penalty in Iran — has been in Tehran's Evin prison since November 2021.

She has spent much of the past decade in and out of jail.

On Sunday she was one of 34 women in the Evin prison to stage a 24-hour symbolic hunger strike on the second anniversary of the protest movement "in solidarity with the protesting people of Iran, against the government's oppressive policies," her foundation said.

Mohammadi's children received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf in 2023 while she was incarcerated.

Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, women in Iran have to cover their hair and neck in public.

The "Woman, Life, Freedom" demonstrations were crushed by the authorities, with rights group Amnesty International saying security forces used assault rifles and shotguns in the crackdown.

Human rights groups say at least 551 people were killed. Thousands more were arrested, according to the United Nations.

But Mohammadi was defiant.

"Despite the challenging road ahead, we all know that nothing is as it was before," she wrote.

"The people feel the greatest change in their beliefs, lives, and society. A change that, while it has not yet toppled the Islamic Republic regime, has shaken the foundations of religious tyranny."