Iran is being hit by a “war” on its economy, according to officials facing tightened US sanctions and renewed Israeli threats of imminent military action over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
“This is war,” Guardians Council Chairman Ayatollah Ahmad Janati said as he led Friday prayers in Tehran.
Iran needs to mobilize “the nation, government, officials and armed forces” to tackle its “special and serious economic problems,” which go beyond the global economic malaise, he said.
“We should prepare and break this wave [of economic pressure]. We should not surrender,” he said.
Janati said officials under the supervision of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were tackling the crisis, and he urged national media to avoid “pessimistic” stories and instead focus on news that “make people happy, hopeful and boost their morale.”
The US ramped up sanctions this week with a congressional measure to punish companies doing business with Iran’s energy and oil shipping sector, and an order by US President Barack Obama targeting Iran’s oil exports and one Chinese and one Iraqi bank alleged to be fronting Iranian banking transactions.
Existing Western sanctions, especially an EU embargo, are already taking their toll, nearly halving Iran crude sales, according to an International Energy Agency estimate.
China, the biggest buyer of oil still exported, has lashed out at the new US sanctions.
However, Obama’s spokesman said on Wednesday that while the sanctions are having “a significant effect,” Iran had “yet to make the choice it needs to make, which is to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.”
The US alleges Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon “break-out” capacity.
Tehran denies the charge, saying its atomic program is exclusively peaceful.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed a threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Netanyahu told visiting US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Wednesday: “However forceful our statements, they have not convinced Iran that we are serious about stopping them.”
He said that sanctions, and deadlocked negotiations between Iran and world powers, have not had “any impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
Khamenei last week underlined that, under the Western pressure, “not only will we not revise our calculations, but we will continue on our path with greater confidence.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed that when he said Iran had 11,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges operating — hundreds more than reported in a May 25 report by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, signs of the impact of sanctions are piling up.
Iran’s currency, the rial, is trading at more than 20,000 to US$1 — around half of what it was worth a year ago. Abbas Memarnejad, the head of Iran’s Customs Organization, was quoted on the Web site of state broadcaster IRINN as saying that imports have fallen 7 percent in the past four months to US$17.3 billion, while non-oil exports had plummeted 16 percent to US$12 billion.
Iranian media have shown images of long lines of people waiting to buy subsidized chicken, after prices for the fowl have nearly tripled in the past year because of accelerating inflation.
A closed-door meeting of top Iranian government officials and lawmakers last week agreed to budget cuts as part of a strategy to mitigate the sanctions’ effects, Iranian Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini told official news agency IRNA.
Iranian Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani — who also described the sanctions as “no less than military war” — said on Tuesday that a special sanctions-management cell had been set up in the bank that met daily.
“In times of sanctions, we need to carry out asymmetrical economic warfare, which we have begun,” he told IRNA.
Leaders have said that Iran should start weaning itself off its dependence on oil exports.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in