Neither Coronavirus, Nor US Can Stop Iran’s Progress: Rouhani


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani highlighted the country’s resolve to implement the current Iranian calendar year’s slogan of ‘Surge in Production”, stressing that neither the coronavirus nor the “US virus” can impede the Islamic Republic’s path of progress.   

Addressing a ceremony held Thursday via videoconference to inaugurate a number of major water projects in the southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, the president said sanctions and unprecedented pressures will not affect the country’s move forward.  

The US sanctions cannot force Iran to give up and the inauguration of such big projects more than two years after the imposition of the sanctions is proof of this, Rouhani added.

“Coronavirus and problems like that cannot stop our production. Of course such problems have some impacts. Both the coronavirus and the US virus have impacts but none of them can stop us,” he stressed.

“We continue our production and make all-out efforts so that the objective set by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution for surge in production in this year becomes operational and is materialized.”

In a New Year message on March 20, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stressed the need for a further surge in the national production with the participation of all organizations and sectors, saying, “Officials should act in a way that production will witness a surge, God willing, and that there will be a tangible change in the lives of the people.”