‘A bittersweet feeling’: Local Iranians hopeful for change amid conflict in their home country

Iranians living in Edmonton say they have mixed feelings about the conflict unfolding in their home country. CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa has their story.

The conflict unfolding in the middle east has some local Iranians feeling conflicted.

Amid worries for loved ones during the almost two weeks of missile exchanges between Israel and Iran has been the hope for some for a regime change.

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Salar Melli moved to Canada from Tehran in 2009 and has not been back since, due in part to worries over his public opposition to what he calls the “oppressive” Iranian government.

“People of Iran want Iran to be a modern country,” he said. “We do have a religious population, but we don’t want a religious government”

“Most people in Iran right now, if you ask, they want a secular government and they just want to make peace and live,” he added.

Melli said his mother still lives in Iran in an area that was hit with missile strikes. He said communication has been difficult with internet blackouts, but he believes she is safe for now.

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“Iranian people are not strangers to wars,” he said. “It’s like a bittersweet feeling, because there’s a lot of excitement about the fall of the government.”

Pegah Salari, who came to Edmonton as an international student in 2006, has also noticed some conflicting feelings arising in her community.

“There are people’s patriotic sentiments on one hand, and then there is the long-lived want of seeing this Islamic regime being obliterated,” she said, explaining some people believe a war could topple the government while others want change to come from social movements by Iranians themselves.

“We’re talking about a very exhausted nation who have been dealing with this regime’s repression, torture, deception and complete and utter incompetence for four-and-a-half decades,” Salari said.

The University of Alberta said in a statement it was aware of 19 students stuck in Iran after airports across the region were closed. Other students, it said, have travelled to the Iranian border or planned to travel to Turkiye.

“The University of Alberta acknowledges the distress caused by the unfolding conflict in Iran,” the university said. “We are deeply concerned for the safety and well-being of our students, staff and faculty who are in the country … The university is in contact with the students and actively monitoring this evolving situation to provide any support we can.”

Israel began attacks on Iran on June 13. Over the weekend, the U.S. joined the fray with attacks on multiple Iranian nuclear sites.

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On Monday, Iran retaliated against the U.S. by attacking an American military air base in Qatar. Later that day, U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire to be phased in over the next 24 hours.

CTV News is following the situation and posting the most up-to-date information here.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa and CTV News