First VP Stresses US Failure in Destabilizing Iranian Economy

“The Americans are aware that Iran can resolve its problems and therefore, they imposed the hardest-ever sanctions all throughout the history against the Iranian nation, but Iran is still standing on its feet,” Jahangiri said, addressing a ceremony in Tehran on Tuesday.

He stressed the Iranian government’s efforts to turn the economic turbulence created after the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal into stability, and said, “Fortunately, today we are witnessing signs of reviving stability to the country’s economy.”

Earlier this month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stressed Washington’s failure to prevent his country’s oil exports, expressing pleasure that crude sales had even increased after the US sanctions.

“Part of my meeting today with the oil minister pertained to a discussion of the conditions of oil sales. Thanks God, we are in suitable and good conditions. The Americans wanted to prevent our oil exports and I clearly tell people that our oil exports have improved after November 4 (the day US imposed oil sanctions against Iran) compared to the past,” President Rouhani said after a joint meeting with the parliament speaker and the judiciary chief in Tehran.

He stressed Americans’ failure to block Iran’s oil supplies, and said they also made attempts to dissuade OPEC members from decreasing production but they failed.

“Our oil sales will stay the same course that it was before this (OPEC) meeting,” Rouhani said.

Early in November, Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnasser Hemmati said that the US had failed in its efforts to cut Iran’s oil revenues to zero with sweeping sanctions, while the country was ready to combat even worse conditions.

Hemmati made the point posting a message on his Instagram page, underlining that it was no secret any more that the US had failed to carry out its earlier threats to push down Iran’s oil sales to zero under various pretexts.

“The Central Bank of Iran has developed various plans to cope with the worst-case scenarios after the second round of the US sanctions is carried out. Meanwhile, we have managed to build up our foreign exchange reserves over the past months,” he said.

According to Hemmati, the Central Bank of Iran had been focused mainly on stabilizing foreign-exchange market over the past few weeks through promoting Iran’s national currency.

“I’m sure that the great Iranian nation will leave behind successfully the current volatile situation. We are now developing new plans to restore balance to the market and prevent from further inflation,” he noted.

Also last month, Iran’s new Economy Minister Farhad Dejpasand downplayed the US November-4 sanctions against Tehran, stressing that his country had planned proper and effective measures to confront them.

In a related front, Iranian First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri assured the nation that the US November-4 sanctions would not leave any tangible impacts on the country, playing down Washington’s attempts to stop Iran’s oil exports.

“The government declares honorably that the US will not be able to stop Iran’s oil sale,” Jahangiri said, addressing a forum in Tehran.

“The Iranian nation should know that nothing will happen with the second stage of the (US) sanctions; they (the Americans) did whatever they could in the past few months and we have adopted the necessary measures (to confront them),” he added.

Jahangiri addressed the US officials, saying that the only way before them was interaction and talks without any bullying.