Ahmadinejad Says Iran Is Ready to Renew Talks on Nuclear Program
January 30, 2012, 1:03 AM ESTBy Ladane Nasseri
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country is willing to revive talks on its nuclear program and accused Western countries of dodging discussions, the state-run Fars news agency reported.
“They claim that Iran doesn’t want negotiations but it isn’t so,” Ahmadinejad said yesterday in the southeastern province of Kerman. “Every time they seek pretexts, and as we approach talks they issue resolutions so that perhaps negotiations don’t take place.”
European Union foreign ministers agreed on Jan. 23 to ban oil petrochemical imports from Iran and to freeze Iranian central bank assets. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the embargo was aimed at pressing the Iranian government to resume negotiations over its nuclear program.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Jan. 22 that only discussions, and not sanctions, can resolve the standoff over the country’s atomic program. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Jan. 20 that the U.S. and the EU want Iran to return to talks and that if Iran’s leaders agree to a “serious dialogue,” they must be prepared to discuss steps to give up “options for nuclear weapons.”
“Just meetings for propaganda and show is not what we are seeking,” Westerwelle said.
Western powers, including the U.S., say Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at weapons development, a charge Iran denies.
Devaluation
In an effort to reduce the black market’s influence as international sanctions undermine confidence in the currency, Iran’s central bank said it will devalue the rial by about 8.5 percent against the U.S. dollar, setting a new exchange rate.
Iran will fix the rial rate at 12,260 to the dollar as of Jan. 28 and will meet all demand for foreign currencies through banks, central bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani said , according to the state-run Mehr news agency. The reference exchange rate on the central bank’s website yesterday was 11,296 per dollar.
The decision follows a Jan. 26 announcement that the interest rate paid on rial savings at local banks will be raised to as much as 21 percent from between 12.5 percent and 15 percent, above the current inflation rate of 20.6 percent.
Iranians had already been paying far more than the central bank’s reference rate for dollars. The currency strengthened on local markets to about 19,000 from a record 23,000 per dollar after the announcement of higher interest rates, Donya-e-Eqtesed newspaper reported yesterday.
Future Talks
Ahmadinejad played down the significance of the EU embargo, saying Iran doesn’t need to sell oil to European nations. That echoes a Jan. 23 Oil Ministry statement that Iran has “no concerns” about finding new customers for its crude.
Tighter sanctions will harm Iran’s population rather than the government, Ahmadinejad said yesterday. Iran has long insisted that the punitive measures are insignificant.
“The U.S. says sanctions against Iran are directed at officials, not the people, but these types of sanctions will affect the core of the population and won’t harm officials,” he told factory workers in Kerman. “The West is targeting our population.”
Iran last held talks with world powers in January 2011 and negotiations broke down without any commitments to hold future discussions. Ashton said at the time she was “disappointed” that Iran demanded an end to United Nations sanctions before substantive talks about its nuclear work could begin.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Jan. 19 that Turkey will give a letter from Iran to Ashton asking to revive talks. In the letter, Iran asks Ashton to decide on a place and a time for negotiations, he said at an Ankara press conference.
Iran is the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Europe is collectively the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil after China, which has criticized the punitive U.S. and European measures.
“To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches,” China’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday in a statement, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The Chinese government hopes all parties will seek solutions that bring peace and stability, Xinhua said.
--Editors: Jennifer M. Freedman, Louis Meixler
To contact the reporter on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
