Iran expects to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Russia on January 17 during President Masoud Pezeshkian's visit to Moscow, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told Sputnik Saturday.
Referring to earlier discussions, Mohajerani noted that Iran's president met with Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October, and expressed optimism about finalizing the deal.
"Specifically with Russia, we anticipate the president's visit to Moscow, during which we hope to see progress on two key issues: the North-South Corridor, which is already underway, and the plan to transfer Russian gas to Iran—both of which have been key points of agreement between the two sides," Mohajerani said.
Tehran and Moscow initially signed a long-term agreement in March 2001, officially called the Treaty of the Foundation of Mutual Relations and the Principles of Cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation Act. The agreement was originally set for ten years but was extended twice for five-year terms. However, similar promises have been made in the past without finalizing a renewed treaty.
According to Iran’s ambassador to Russia, the countries agreed in 2021 to extend the agreement for another five years, setting its expiration for 2026.
In 2023, reports surfaced about possible challenges in developing the new agreement with Russia, though few details about its content have been disclosed publicly.
The announcement signals a continued emphasis on the administration’s tough approach on Tehran but comes with Trump’s acknowledgment of past tensions with his appointee.
“I am pleased to announce Morgan Ortagus as Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for Middle East Peace… Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She will hopefully be an asset to Steve [Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East].”
Ortagus is recognized as a significant figure in US foreign policy, serving as the State Department spokesperson during Trump’s presidency. In this role, she communicated US positions on global issues, often focusing on Iran, China, and the Middle East.
She expressed hope in a tweet after being appointed that under Trump peace and stability will return to the Middle East.
A hardline approach to Iran
Ortagus consistently echoed and defended the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran. This policy aimed to isolate Tehran diplomatically and economically following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA) in 2018.
Ortagus argued that the sanctions undermined Iran’s ability to fund regional proxy groups and its missile development program.
She supported the US exit from the JCPOA, describing the agreement as inadequate in addressing Iran’s regional interventions and nuclear ambitions.
"Under the current trajectory, the Iranian regime will get a nuclear weapon in the next administration unless we have a president with the fortitude to stop it," said Ortagus in an exclusive interview with Iran International in June.
Ortagus highlighted the US’s backing of domestic protests in Iran, attributing the country’s economic and social struggles to the government’s policies.
"Khamenei's thugs killed 1,500 Iranians on the streets of Iran last November,” Ortagus wrote, quoting one of Khamenei's tweets in August 2020. “At least 23 were children. They deserved freedom and a future.”
She was referring to the fall of 2019, when widespread protests broke out across Iran following a sudden threefold increase in gas prices. Thousands of protesters were arrested. Many victims sustained gunshot wounds to the upper chest, indicating that security forces were operating under shoot-to-kill orders.
Ortagus has consistently portrayed Iran’s missile program as a global threat and accused Tehran of supporting militant groups.
Joining a team led by Steve Witkoff, Ortagus’s appointment comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East. Her focus on pressuring Tehran aligns with Trump’s broader foreign policy objectives.
In the past three weeks, at least three well-known female artists have made headlines by unveiling in public as an act of civil disobedience.
On December 30, renowned 62-year-old visual artist Bita Fayazi gained widespread attention on social media when she cut the ribbon to inaugurate a government-sponsored art exhibition with her scarf tied around her neck instead of covering her curly gray hair. Some other female participants at the ceremony, mostly young women, also did not cover their hair.
The Ceramic Art Biennial event was held at Niavaran Cultural Center, a bustling center of cultural activities and exhibitions governed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in the north of the capital.
There are no reports of ministry officials or others at the event objecting to Fayazi’s unveiling during the ceremony. She has not clarified whether it was a planned protest against compulsory hijab or an impromptu act.
The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-linked Fars News Agency slammed the ministry for the incident at the Niavaran Cultural Center which it described as a “de-stigmatization of unveiling”. Similarly, the Mehr News Agency, affiliated with the state-run Islamic Propaganda Organization, labeled Fayazi’s act “limitless norm-breaking”.
A few days earlier, on December 26, Goli Emami, a prominent author and translator, walked on the stage at an event organized by an Iranian publishing house at Ivan-e Shams Hall in Tehran to receive the IranKetab Literary Award for her lifetime of literary work.
Emami, 82, who received a standing ovation from the audience, was not even wearing a token scarf around her neck when she accepted her award.
Such defiance of the compulsory hijab, even at government-sponsored events, was unimaginable before the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran's morality police in September 2022.
Amini’s death sparked several months of nationwide protests. The 22-year-old Amini was arrested on the street by morality patrols, not for defiance of hijab, but because some of her hair was showing from under her headscarf.
Since then, the number of women who refuse to wear the compulsory hijab in public has grown significantly. Social media reports indicate that seeing unveiled women, even in very conservative religious cities such as Qom and Mashhad, no longer surprises anyone.
Music and dance have become powerful tools for Iranian women to challenge the Islamic governance that has prohibited solo singing and public dancing by women for over four decades.
The hijab-free concert by singer Parastoo Ahmadi on December 12 at an empty caravansary which she streamed live on YouTube, was as groundbreaking as the one-woman anti-hijab protest of Vida Movahed, a young mother of 32, on Revolution Avenue in Tehran seven years ago, that was the first symbolic act of defiance catching the public's imagination.
At her “virtual concert”, Ahmadi, 27, not only had no head covering but also wore a black gown that revealed her bare shoulders. She was arrested and arraigned but was later freed on bail.
Female actresses have been spearheading the anti-compulsory hijab movement since the Woman, Life, Freedom protests at the cost of imprisonment, being banned from working and losing their passports.