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Honcharuk's offer to quit and Khamenei's sermon
Summary
A look back at 18 January 2020, after a day of political fallout in Kyiv and anger over Flight 752 in Iran.
What was left hanging on 18 January 2020, a day after two political stories broke in Ukraine and Iran? Both were still unfolding.
In Kyiv, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk had submitted his resignation on 17 January 2020. The move followed the leak earlier that week of an audio clip in which he allegedly criticised President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies. Zelensky subsequently announced that Honcharuk was allowed to keep his position, so the offer to quit did not end his time in office.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a Friday sermon on 17 January 2020, his first in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of passengers aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. He also praised Operation Martyr Soleimani, saying it had delivered a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger mounted against the government over its handling of the Flight 752 disaster.
The protests behind the sermon
The Flight 752 protests were anti-government demonstrations that formed part of wider unrest in Iran in January 2020, following the crackdown on the 2019 Iranian protests. They began after it emerged that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had shot the aircraft down on 8 January 2020.
The two stories were separate, but each placed a government under pressure: one over a leaked recording and economic policy, the other over the downing of a passenger jet.
