Farnaz Fassihi

Today, I have hope.

Of returning.

You know, that's what a lot of Iranians who've been exiled and who can't go back say.

They say that it's pretty bare minimum to want to see your relatives and visit your home country.

And it's a right that has been robbed from many people.

And I think many Iranians the world over have a glimmer of hope.

They dare to dream of a free Iran.

where political prisoners are free, where young people who take to the streets to demand for a better living are not shot and killed, and people are not struggling to make ends meet because it's a resource-rich country, where parents are not mourning their children.

Watching the videos of people taking to the streets and chanting freedom, freedom in reaction to Mr. Khamenei's killing, it may sound to an American or Western audience that this is a modest aspiration.

But I think for the Iranian people who have sort of long aspired and aspired

work toward having a free, democratic, secular country, this is a big dream.

And as a reporter who's covered Iran for three decades, I never thought that I would be writing this news or, you know, reporting this.

So I looked at the front page of the New York Times today with the headline and thought, wow, this is a headline and a story I never thought I would write.

in my lifetime, yeah.