{"id":28376,"date":"2012-10-10T20:55:11","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T01:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/?p=28376"},"modified":"2012-10-10T20:55:48","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T01:55:48","slug":"irans-supreme-leader-calls-eu-support-for-sanctions-foolish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2012\/10\/10\/irans-supreme-leader-calls-eu-support-for-sanctions-foolish\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls EU Support for Sanctions ‘Foolish’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>VOA – Iran\u2019s supreme leader has lashed out at European nations for supporting economic sanctions against his country in the latest salvo by an Iranian political leader responding to the country\u2019s currency crisis. In a speech in the northeastern city of Bojnourd on Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the European states \u201cfoolish.\u201d
\n\u201cThey are sacrificing themselves for the sake of America, and it\u2019s foolish,\u201d he told a crowd during a speech broadcast on state television. \u201cThis [sanctions] is a war against a nation. Of course, with the grace of God, they will be defeated by the Iranian nation in this war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khamenei contrasted last week\u2019s street protests against the plummeting value of the rial in Tehran with ongoing economic protests in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor an hour or two a number of people set two or three garbage cans on fire in a couple of streets in Tehran, and they [the Westerners] started to celebrate and said there are protests in Iran,\u201d Khamenei said. \u201cIs our situation worse than yours? There have been protests on streets of major European countries for around one year, during day and night. Your problem is far more complicated than ours. Your economy is frozen. Do you celebrate that Iran\u2019s economy has been weakened? It\u2019s you that are wretched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khamenei also addressed the notion that some of Iran\u2019s economic problems are homegrown, saying inflation and unemployment are the country\u2019s two most important problems but that they could be solved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [sanctions] may create problems. Mismanagement may even increase these problems. That\u2019s correct but it\u2019s not something the Islamic Republic can\u2019t resolve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Khamenei called the sanctions \u201cillogical\u201d and \u201cbarbaric\u201d and said the relationship between sanctions and Iran\u2019s nuclear program is a \u201clie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernd Kaussler, an assistant professor at James Madison University in Virginia who focuses on Iran, agrees that the coordinated international effort to put pressure on the Iranian economy is starting to create problems for Tehran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that Europe has come a long way from the early days of constructive engagement and is now in tandem with U.S. policy, to the extent that EU sanctions against Iran are in accordance with legislation passed in the U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Khamenei is the latest Iranian leader to address the people in the wake of a dramatic decline in the value of the country\u2019s currency, the rial.<\/p>\n

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed \u201cpsychological pressures\u201d linked to Western sanctions for the currency fall while also denying charges by political rivals that his economic policies have worsened the situation.<\/p>\n

Also last week, hardline cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University \u201cthese [economic] pressures won\u2019t last,\u201d and that Iran \u201chas proven that it will not be worn down by pressures and has experienced how to live with problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rial has lost a third of its value in the past week and dropped as much as 80 percent over the past year, further compromising Iran\u2019s already shaky economy. Iran\u2019s official inflation rate is 25 percent. Western sanctions have severely restricted the country\u2019s ability to sell oil on the world market and limited its access to the international banking system.<\/p>\n

The sanctions have been imposed over Iran\u2019s refusal to stop its uranium enrichment program. Iran claims the uranium is for nuclear energy, while the U.S. and its allies say Iran is striving to build nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Some information for this report was provided by AP.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA – Iran\u2019s supreme leader has lashed out at European nations for supporting economic sanctions against his country in the latest salvo by an Iranian political leader responding to the country\u2019s currency crisis. In a speech in the northeastern city of Bojnourd on Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the European states \u201cfoolish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}