Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said U.S. sanctions imposed on his country are damaging Iran’s economy, days after saying they would not achieve any results.
اضافة اعلان
Speaking in an interview with state television on Friday, Pezeshkian said, “Some people say the sanctions have no impact at all. I really don’t know how to respond to them,” adding, “We are at war, and we must accept the circumstances imposed by war.”
On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlined plans aimed at “choking the Iranian economy,” warning countries that continue to conduct business with Iran of severe consequences.
The newly announced measures add to the sanctions regime imposed on Tehran by the United States and some of its allies since 2018, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), during his first term.
Pezeshkian said Iran’s exports and imports had declined by between 25% and 35% in recent months. He added that gasoline prices would eventually need to rise “to keep pace with the decline in trade.”
“We must raise the price of the third gasoline quota tier ... for example, from 5,000 tomans to 10,000 tomans,” he said. Iran currently applies several subsidized gasoline prices depending on consumption levels.
Fuel prices in Iran, one of the world’s major oil producers, are among the lowest globally.
Iranian Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohammad Jafar Ghaem-Panah said on Wednesday that a U.S. maritime blockade of Iranian ports had prevented the country from importing sufficient quantities of gasoline to make up for a shortfall in domestic production.
Pezeshkian, however, said the same day that the sanctions “will achieve nothing,” insisting that Iran was “standing firm” in the face of economic pressure.
Source: AFP
