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U.S. Department of State: Collapsing rial caused by Iranian Government’s mismanagement

Business Materials 6 October 2012 13:35 (UTC +04:00)

Trend Agency's Iran Service Department Chief Dalga Khatinoglu

The collapse of Iran's national currency in value has been caused by the Iranian government's mismanagement of the economy, U.S. Secretary Department's Persian language spokesperson Alan Eyre told Trend in an interview on Oct.6.

The USD rate in Iran suddenly increased from late September by 80 per cent compared to Iran's national currency the rial in the country's open market. This collapse in the rial's value caused the closure of the Forex exchanges, markets and people are protesting in Tehran.

Adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Gholamhossein Haddad Adel referred to the collapse as a 'conspiracy of enemies', saying Iran will defeat it strongly on Friday.

After protests and demonstrations against the falling rial value, police clashed them and arrested dozens of currency speculators spoken of as 'market disrupters' on Wednesday.

A day before the protests, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a press conference that the collapsing rial value has been caused by Western sanctions on Iran's oil export and banking system, as well as 22 people who between them dominate on the currency market.

Ahmadinejad did not mention their names, but several MPs and top clerics slammed Ahmadinejad's statement, saying the rial's value dropped by one third in a week because the government's mismanagement.

Alan Eyre said that the Iranian people must see their government as mainly responsible for economic disasters.

Iranian economy has been hit by 4000 trillion rials of liquidity, a 24 per cent inflation rate and a 0.4 per cent GDP growth. The USD rate in Iran increased from 13, 000 rials in the beginning of 2012 to 25, 000 in mid-September, but suddenly rose to 36,000 during one week on Iran's open market. Tehran's major market, the Bazaar has been closed since Wednesday and might re-open on Saturday.

Eyre said that western sanctions over Iran, of course, affected Iran's economy and has put pressure on citizens partially, but the Iranian government's mismanagement of the economy and wrong decisions caused a major part in economic problems.

Sanction could be eliminated

Mr Eyre said citing on Hillary Cilinton's Wednesday statement that if Iran works genuinely with the international community over its controversial nuclear programme, the sanctions over Iran could be "remedied in a short order".

"We urge Iran to cooperate with the international community in the nuclear issue fully and begin the negotiations with P5+1 seriously to put an end to the world's concerns," a Secretary of State spokesman said.

Alan underlined that sanctions can be a removed "immediately" whenever the Iranian government begins cooperating with P5+1. He said that if Iran continues its current policy, it should accept its consequences.

The U.S. is not against a powerful Iran

The U.S diplomat added that Iran's cooperation with the international community in a nuclear issue doesn't mean that Iran is giving up to the U.S.

"We don't have any problem with a strong and powerful Iran. Our dispute is over the probable military aspects of Iran's nuclear activities," he said.

Mr Alan underlined that Iran can use peaceful nuclear activities, but it attempts to hide sensitive programmes and avoids being transparent over them.

"We can see the IAEA's reports about Iran which say that Iran avoids cooperating. My question is that why is Iran trying to run away from cooperation if it doesn't have anything to hide?" Eyre added.

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