Emily Fang

Iran's government continues to maintain a near total telecommunications blackout, but an Iranian living just north of Tehran managed to send a text to NPR that it was, quote, unacceptable for the U.S.

to end the war without toppling Iran's government first.

Iranians, they wrote, are, quote, only tolerating war, hoping that it will lead to their freedom.

Another Iranian who participated in mass anti-government demonstrations this past winter says the government killed three of his friends this January in a crackdown, leading him to believe a popular uprising would never end the Iranian regime.

He says our only hope is that Trump and Bibi, speaking of Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, make the right moves.

Emily Fang, NPR News, Van, Turkey.

Iran's president wrote on Twitter yesterday that the Strait of Hormuz is, quote, So Iran has been letting through some ships owned by or carrying cargo from countries it perceives as neutral.

Turkey said earlier this month Iran let one of its ships through.

And India's ambassador to Iran said Iran had let through a few Indian-associated ships.

and is in talks with Tehran to let through more.

And a Chinese sailor on a Panamanian flagship told NPR on Monday that their ship carrying industrial methanol sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on the same day.

They asked to stay unnamed because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The crew of Burmese and Chinese sailors will sail back to their home port in China.

Emily Fang, NPR News, Van, Turkey.

Here in Van, Turkey, thousands of ethnic Kurds have congregated to celebrate Nowruz.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, they hold hands and dance.

There is no official census of the Kurdish population in Turkey, but Van province, along Turkey's border with Iran, has historically been predominantly Kurdish.

Even when many expressions of Kurdish ethnic identity are frowned upon or outright forbidden in Turkey, some of the Kurds here waved the Kurdistan national flag today, an expression for their long-quashed ambition for an independent homeland.

And they chant Kurdish anthems associated with armed Kurdish resistance groups.

Emily Fang, NPR News, Van, Turkey.