MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/. The protests in Iran were caused by inner reasons, though were fueled by the Western media, including BBC and Voice of America, Russia’s Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan said in an interview with TASS on Sunday.
"The wave of protests in Iran in late 2017 - early 2018 was caused first of all by the fact the locals were not happy about the social and economic situation in the country (inflation, growing prices on essentials, high level of unemployment, corrupted authorities, expensive foreign policies and so forth)," the diplomat said. "The Iranian officials admitted existing problems."
"I would like to point to the provocative role of the anti-regime Iranian resources based outside the country. First of all, this is BBC’s Persian service, the Persian version of Voice of America and official Internet portals of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which Iran considers a terrorist organization," the Russian ambassador said. "Those media outlets heated skillfully the anti-governmental protests, calling the Iranians for violence and armed confrontation, thus influencing destructively the situation in that country."
According to the ambassador, the situation has stabilized now. "As far as we know, the country is undertaking active measures to improve the economic situation and to meet certain reasonable public requirements. For example, in a new draft budget the government’s social obligations are expanded. Generally speaking, now the situation is stable, there areonly sporadic protests," he said.
Protests in Iran began on December 28, 2017. The participants protested against growing prices. According to the media, 25 people died in the protests.