Tehran likely to loosen Revolutionary Guard’s grip on economy
DUBAI: Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the Revolutionary Guard to loosen its hold on the economy, the country’s defense minister said, raising the possibility that the paramilitary organization might privatize some of its vast holdings.
The comments this weekend by Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami appear to be a trial balloon to test the reaction of the idea, long pushed by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate. Protests over the country’s poor economy last month escalated into demonstrations directly challenging the government.
But whether the Guard would agree remains unclear, as the organization is estimated to hold around a third of the country’s entire economy.
Hatami, the first non-Guardaffiliated military officer to be made defense minister in nearly 25 years, made the comments in an interview published Saturday by the state-run IRAN newspaper. He said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered both the country’s regular military and the Guard to get out of businesses not directly affiliated to their work.
“Our success depends on market conditions,” the newspaper quoted Hatami as saying.
He did not name the companies that would be privatized. The Guard did not immediately acknowledge the supreme leader’s orders in their own publications, nor did Khamenei’s office.