Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Sadeq Larijani, President Ahmadinejad, Ali Larijani
Government increasingly criticized for concealing information on Iranian economy
New website provides real-time information on prices of products, goods
Supreme Leader visits families of two nuclear scientists eliminated this past year
 |
 |
 |
|
Highlights of the week
|
From accusations against the West to criticism of negotiators:
reactions in Iranian media to failure of Istanbul nuclear talks
Iranian media blamed the West for the failure of the nuclear talks between Iran and G5+1 in Istanbul last weekend. Tehran Emrooz, a daily affiliated with the pragmatic conservative bloc, claimed earlier this week that foreign policy chief Ashton’s disappointment with the talks stemmed from the fact that the West was unable to force Iran to comply with its demands. She will remain disappointed, the daily argued, as long as the West continues its attempts to impose its will on Iran.
Iran’s negotiating stance is clear and obvious, says an editorial published by the daily. First, it will not negotiate its legitimate right to nuclear technology. Second, it is willing to act in accordance with international obligations, provided that the measures designed to ensure that its nuclear program is used for civilian purposes only are not limited to Iran and are also applied to other countries, including Israel. Third, Iran demands that the process of nuclear demilitarization include all the countries in the world. The West is obviously unwilling to accept such reasonable demands, making it responsible for the failure of the talks (Tehran Emrooz, January 23).
The conservative daily Siyasat-e Rooz also addressed the West’s disappointment with the talks, claiming that it was the result of Western countries’ inflexibility over Iran’s demands, including the nuclear demilitarization of Israel and the lifting of the sanctions illegally imposed on Iran. If Iran was willing to suspend its uranium enrichment, did not bring up the issue of the missiles in Israel’s possession, did not demand a discussion of Israel’s military nuclear program, and did not insist on having peaceful nuclear technology, the West would not be disappointed. Even then, however, Western countries would be unwilling to agree to Iran’s demands, because the West did not meet its obligations towards Iran even when it did suspend its uranium enrichment. The West should be disappointed, the daily claimed, because Iran is not willing to agree to all its demands and will continue insisting on its nuclear rights (Siyasat-e Rooz, January 23).
The conservative daily Resalat also laid the blame at the West’s door, claiming that the U.S. and Britain refused to give up on the idea of pressure-based diplomacy towards Iran despite their defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan and despite President Obama’s defeat in the congress elections. They are not willing to acknowledge that Iran’s nuclear program is past the point of no return. The members of the nuclear club have no other choice but to come to terms with the reality of a nuclear Iran; their political extremism, however, prevents them from doing so.
The Iranian delegation’s refusal to negotiate the nuclear rights of the Iranian people angered Western countries, which found themselves face-to-face with a different Iran from the one they had known and which they had always treated as the party to blame. Western countries are not interested in reaching an agreement with Iran, but rather continue employing a diplomacy based on exerting pressure. Iran’s official withdrawal from any discussion concerning the nuclear issue was declared in Istanbul, the daily said. In the future, that issue will either be relegated to the bottom of the list in negotiations with the West, or will be discussed by the professional and legal committees of the IAEA. The West is facing a new phenomenon called Iran, and that reality is difficult to accept even for China and Russia, which are used to the model of North Korea, a country that is unable to make any decision without consulting with them first (Resalat, January 24).
A different approach towards the Istanbul talks could be seen in an interview given by Javid Ghorban-Oghli, formerly a senior official in Iran’s Foreign Ministry, to the website Iranian Diplomacy, which usually presents a pragmatic view of foreign policy issues.
Ghorban-Oghli, the former chief of the Foreign Ministry African Affairs Department during the term of reformist president Mohammad Khatami, criticized the way the Iranian team (led by Saeed Jalili) handled the negotiations.
According to Ghorban-Oghli, the failure of the talks resulted from the lack of a clearly-defined framework for conducting the negotiations. While Western countries came to Istanbul to negotiate on the nuclear issue, the Iranian delegation came to the negotiating table to gain recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and lift the sanctions imposed on it. The former diplomat claimed that Jalili failed to properly realize the meaning of his diplomatic mission. As chief negotiator, he is supposed to find ways to solve the nuclear problem, not the problems of the whole world. Bringing up the Iranian suggestions, he said, only exacerbated the crisis and worsened the sanctions imposed on Iran, while doing nothing to ease Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear activity.
Ghorban-Oghli said that the nuclear issue must be handled separately from all the other problems in the world worth handling. When oil was nationalized in the early ‘50s, former PM Mohammad Mossadegh focused on the main issue, which was the nationalization of oil rather than the unjust world order that prevailed at the time. The talks between Iran and the G5+1 are not the appropriate venue to discuss issues of global reach. If Iran is interested in discussing such issues, it would be advised to do so in other contexts, such as the UN General Assembly or the organization of Islamic countries, where it can enjoy the support of many other countries.
The former Foreign Ministry official also brought up questions about the Iranian delegation’s refusal to hold direct talks with the representatives sent by the U.S. to the Istanbul talks. He mentioned that last year Iran had agreed to hold talks with William Burns, the U.S. representative to the Geneva talks. The reason for the Iranian delegation’s refusal to hold direct talks with U.S. representatives this time is therefore unclear. Iran must use all means it has at its disposal to solve the nuclear issue, including direct talks with U.S. representatives. Ghorban-Oghli warned that if the talks fail, the pressure and sanctions on Iran will escalate (Diplomasi-ye Irani, January 24).
Iran’s president accuses Expediency Discernment Council, Majles, and judiciary
branch of working against government, anti-constitutional activity
The political power struggles between President Ahmadinejad on one hand and the Majles, the judiciary branch, and the Expediency Discernment Council have reached a new peak this week when the president sent a strongly-worded letter to the Majles members. In the letter, Ahmadinejad accused the Expediency Discernment Council, headed by his political rival Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, of collaborating with the heads of the legislative and judiciary branches in an attempt to change the constitution and the way state affairs are handled.
The president claimed that the council interfered with the government’s responsibilities and overstepped its authorities in an attempt to weaken the government. Ahmadinejad noted that the Majles is only allowed to make laws in accordance with the powers accorded to it by the constitution, and that the Expediency Discernment Council has no authority to approve draft laws that go beyond the authority of the Majles. For example, the council cannot approve a draft law approved by the Majles about a declaration of war on a country, since such a draft law does not fall within the authority of the Majles. In addition, the council may not choose the head of a particular government ministry.
The president went on to say that the authority to resolve disagreements between the three branches of government (the executive, the judiciary, and the legislative) was held exclusively by the Supreme Leader, and that the council could not interfere with issues on which the branches were in disagreement and which were transferred to the Supreme Leader to decide. The president addressed, among other things, the disagreement between the Majles and the government on the power to appoint the Central Bank governor, claiming that the issue fell within the government’s responsibility and that it was therefore inappropriate to submit it to the Expediency Discernment Council.
The council acts in a way that leads to changes in the constitution, the president argued, when it had no permission from the Supreme Leader or the Iranian people to do so. It is not even authorized to interpret the constitution, since that power belongs exclusively to the Guardian Council (Fars, January 24).
Left to right: Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (head of the Expediency Discernment Council), Sadeq Larijani (head of the judiciary branch), President Ahmadinejad, Ali Larijani
(speaker of the Majles)
Unsurprisingly, the president’s letter provoked strong reactions in Iran’s political establishment. Majles Research Center chief Ahmad Tavakoli, considered one of the president’s staunchest political opponents in the conservative camp, fiercely criticized the president’s letter. He mentioned that, following the letter sent by the president to Ali Khamenei earlier this year about disagreements between the government, the Majles, and the Expediency Discernment Council, the Supreme Leader ordered the establishment of a committee consisting of government, Majles, and Guardian Council members to discuss the mutual complaints of the president and the Majles speaker and examine the relationship between the two authorities. Following the discussions of the committee, the Guardian Council chairman, the Majles, and the government submitted their views to the Supreme Leader. It would be prudent of the president, Tavakoli noted, to be patient and wait to hear the Supreme Leader’s position instead of launching a new political conflict.
Tavakoli also claimed that the president’s attack on the Majles, the judiciary, and the Expediency Discernment Council when the subsidy policy reform implementation started was aimed to hide the social problems and economic weakness of which his government is responsible (Fararu, January 24).
Members of the Majles board of directors also criticized the president’s letter. Majles member Mohammad Hossein Farhangi claimed that even if some of the president’s remarks were justified, the style of the letter was inappropriate. Instead of sending letters, the president would be better advised to take part in the Expediency Discernment Council discussions and attempt to influence the council members to support his positions and not to approve draft laws to which he objects.
Majles member Hossein Sobhaninia claimed that while it was the president’s right to write letters on any subject he saw fit, the legal and rational basis of his letter was unclear. Nobody can deny the right of the Majles to realize its legal and constitutional rights, Sobhaninia noted. It was within the authority of the Majles to discuss the multi-year development program, to which the president referred in his letter. Even if the Majles did not take into account the government’s position on every single issue, it did not mean that its actions were against the law. Speaking about the Expediency Discernment Council, the Majles member said that its actions were legal and monitored by the Supreme Leader, and that even if the president has a problem with some of the council members, he cannot question the activity of the entire council. Such letters do not solve any problem, Sobhaninia claimed, and even create new problems which do not serve the interests of the three government branches, the regime, and the Iranian people. The authorities must act in accordance with the recommendations repeatedly issued by the Supreme Leader and cooperate with each other (Tabnak, January 24).
In the past year, there have been strong differences of opinion between the president and the other two government branches: the legislative branch and the judiciary. On several occasions, the president accused the Majles of approving anti-constitutional laws and overstepping its authorities. Majles speaker Ali Larijani, on his part, accused the president of interfering with the legislation process, violating the constitution, and ignoring laws passed by the Majles. There have also been differences of opinion between the president and the judiciary, headed by Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Ali Larijani’s brother. In recent months, the president also accused the Expediency Discernment Council of overstepping its authorities and passing anti-constitutional, anti-Islamic laws.
Government increasingly criticized for concealing information on Iranian economy
In the past week, Iranian media have been increasingly criticizing the government for concealing information on Iran’s economic situation.
ILNA News Agency has reported this week that it’s been a long time since the government last released up-to-date figures on the Iranian economy. According to the news agency, the most recent data released by the Central Bank cover the first three months of the current Iranian year (March-June 2010). The last discussion on the economic indicators was held during the presidential campaign, when the four candidates used various figures to slam their political opponents. Since then, the government has released no comprehensive information on the state of the economy. The only reports occasionally released by the Central Bank discuss various specific indicators having to do with the energy, commerce, and agriculture sectors, financial developments, and state budget.
According to ILNA, the last figures on the industry and mines sector were released in 2007. While last year the Ministry of Industry and Mines did release figures of questionable reliability indicating a 10-percent growth in the sector, shortly after the release of the information the Central Bank published other data stating that the growth only reached eight percent. Since then no other information was released, in light of the disagreements between the Chamber of Statistics and the Central Bank over the growth in that sector in 2008-2009.
The news agency claimed that the economic figures were key to economic development and the implementation of economic programs, and that the government has to release those figures, including the inflation and unemployment rates, and make them publicly available. While the constitution requires the government to release the figures, it has been more than three years since complete, official figures were released. The most recent economic figures released by the Central Bank are for 2009, and even they do not address all of the economic indicators, such as economic growth rate and the growth rate of the industry and mines sector. The Chamber of Statistics website even went offline after publishing the unemployment figures for the first three months of the current year, which contradicted the data released by the Ministry of Labor. The need for information is even greater because of the subsidy policy reform, ILNA claimed, since it is necessary to assess the impact of the reform on the state of Iran’s economy (ILNA, January 23).
Last week, the daily Mardom Salari also criticized the government’s policy of concealing economic information. An editorial published by the daily, affiliated with the traditional conservative bloc, says that it has been seven months since Iranian unemployment figures were last released. The release of economic data is necessary for the formulation of policy in various spheres, the daily argued. The government must end the uncertainty about the unemployment situation, particularly when considering its promise to create one million new workplaces in the coming year. The country is currently in a sensitive economic position, and it is therefore more vital than ever to pay attention to the economic figures. The government must release the unemployment data as soon as possible so that they can be used to make important economic, social, and cultural decisions. The non-disclosure of the data and improper planning reduce, according to the daily, the chance that the government will be able to achieve its objectives in accordance with the president’s promise to solve the unemployment problem by the end of his government’s term (Mardom Salari, January 18).
Official figures previously released by the government about the economic situation raised questions over their reliability. For example, media affiliated with the government’s critics have claimed this year that the official figures released by the government about the unemployment situation do not reflect the real situation, being instead a biased calculation of the unemployment rate designed to create a false impression of a decrease in unemployment.
New website provides real-time information on prices of products, goods
The Iranian authorities have recently launched a new website that provides internet users with real-time information on the prices of various products and services. The website is part of the government’s effort to provide Iranians with up-to-date information on prices following the implementation of the subsidy policy reform, which resulted in an increase in prices, and to rein in the inflationary effects of the reform.
Operated by the Ministry of Commerce and the Consumer Protection Organization, the website (www.124.ir) says that it aims to provide the public with up-to-date, timely information on the prices of products and services. It also provides information on prices grouped by category (i.e., types of products, goods, or services) or geographic location (by province). The website includes the prices of products made in Iran as well as imported goods, including foodstuffs, dairy products, beverages, cars, spare parts, electrical and electronic appliances, cosmetics, and so forth. It also provides information on the prices of various services, such as barber shops, real estate agents, car rentals, and the prices of government services (post, telephone, water, electricity, and gas).
The website also allows citizens to report profiteering by business owners. Fars News Agency reported that all the manufacturers, service providers, and distributors have been instructed to transfer up-to-date prices of products and services to the website. Legal action will be taken against those who refuse to provide the information.
Pictures of the week:
Supreme Leader visits families of two nuclear scientists eliminated this past year
