Sanctions help Iran, general says

TEHRAN — A senior commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard claimed Friday that western sanctions are helpful because they promote Iranian self-sufficiency and insisted the country’s leaders should welcome the measures.

Oil and trade embargoes have helped Iran reduce its reliance on the outside world, Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi told worshippers at Tehran University in a pre-sermon speech.

The remarks echoed the defiant mantra of Iranian conservatives who say the economy is strengthening and that Iran is developing more modern technologies — including building missiles, drones, satellites and advan- cing its uranium enrichment program — precisely because of the West’s punitive measures.

Iran is under four sets of UN sanctions and steppedup western oil, banking and trade restrictions over its refusal to halt the enrichment — a program that can be a pathway to nuclear arms.

The sanctions have cut sharply into Iran’s oil sales, which account for 80 per cent of the country’s foreign currency revenue. At the same time, Iran has been barred from the major international banking systems, which has helped push the national currency to record lows and forced merchants to resort to hand-carrying gold and cash from the nearby commercial hubs of Istanbul or Dubai.

“What we could not achieve in about two decades was achieved in one-and-a-half years,” Naqdi said, citing gasoline production as an example. Iran had tried to be self-sufficient in gasoline production since 1991, but only said it achieved that level in 2010, two years after the first gasoline bans were imposed.

“If I were in the place of authorities, I would not demand the lifting of the sanctions,” he said. “I would instead tell our enemies to impose sanctions as much as they can, because we will discover our hidden capabilities.”