Iranians able to make calls abroad but internet remains offline after protests
Protesters march on a bridge in Tehran (Fars News Agency via AP)
Mobile phones in Iranwere able to call abroad on Tuesday after a crackdown on nationwide protests in which the internet and international calls were cut.
Several people in Tehran were able to call The Associated Press and speak to a journalist there.
The AP bureau in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was unable to call those numbers back.
Witnesses said the internet remained cut off from the outside world. Iran cut off the internet and calls on Thursday as protests intensified.
US President Donald Trump has said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its crackdown on protesters that activists said had killed at least 646 people.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera in an interview aired on Monday night, said he continued to communicate with US envoy Steve Witkoff.
The communication “continued before and after the protests and are still ongoing,” Mr Araghchi said. However, he added:  “Washington’s proposed ideas and threats against our country are incompatible.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran’s public rhetoric diverges from the private messaging the administration has received from Tehran in recent days.
“I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” Ms Leavitt said.
“However, with that said, the president has shown he is unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”
Meanwhile, pro-government demonstrators flooded the streets on Monday in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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