VP: Sanctions Help Boost Iran’s Domestic Production Capacity

Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi downplayed the impacts of the West’s oil embargo against Iran, and stressed that the country’s economy is large enough to withstand and digest pressures.

Speaking at a ceremony to officially announce the volume of foreign investment in Iran, Rahimi pointed to the recent ban on Iranian oil supplies by the European Union, and stated, “The size of Iran’s economy has increased up to more than one thousand billion dollars and only 10% of Iran’s economy relies on oil.”

“At a time when only 10 percent of our economy depends on oil revenues, sanctions against oil would cause self-sufficiency and growth in our domestic production capacity, if they happen at all,” Rahimi underscored.

Rahimi further stressed that sanctions have unified Iranian officials, and added, “The sanctions may hinder us a little, but I say ‘Vivid the sanctions’ which have made us make a bit more efforts to build the country’s economy.”

His remarks came after the EU enforced a set of sanctions against Iranian oil supplies on July 1 in a bid to pressure Tehran into giving up its nuclear rights.

Following the EU move, Tehran said its government and parliament would set up a joint committee to counter the sanctions imposed by the West on the country’s oil supplies.

The joint committee will comprise oil ministry officials, members of the parliament’s energy commission and the national security and foreign policy commission.

Tehran has repeatedly cautioned that such measures will hurt talks with world powers over its nuclear program.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West’s demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians’ national resolve to continue the path.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries.