Rouhani Lauds Iranian People’s Success in Countering Enemy Pressures
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani highlighted the country’s achievements over the past year despite US economic sanctions and said the people “created an epic” by countering the enemy’s pressures.
Speaking in Tehran on Wednesday at the last cabinet session in the current Iranian year (which ends on March 20), Rouhani said it was a glorious year for the great nation of Iran “because in all areas where the enemy had intended to create complexities for the people and eventually force them to bend their knee to the pressure, our people managed to create epics and victories….”
Since May 2019, the worst pressures have been imposed on the Iranian people and the country's oil industry, the president said.
“Although these pressures caused some problems for the people, they created great successes at the same time,” he said, adding that for the first time in Iran’s history, the government was able to manage the economy without reliance on oil exports.
The remarks come against the backdrop of increased tensions between Iran and the US with Washington imposing new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The US has ratcheted up pressure on Iran since May 2018 after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Since then, the administration of US President Donald Trump has been trying to reduce Iran’s oil exports to “zero,” and has sent an aircraft carrier strike group, a bomber squad, an amphibious assault ship, and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to try to stack up pressure on Tehran.
Iranian officials, however, have dismissed such moves as psychological warfare, saying the country has its own ways of circumventing the American bans.
