Khamenei accuses US of hatching economic plots against
Iran
TEHRAN, Feb 17 (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
accused the United States on Wednesday of hatching economic plots against
the Islamic republic.
"Pressures on our economy and obstacles in the way of government
efforts to solve the population's daily problems are among the economic
conspiracies of the United States, the Great Satan, and other enemies of
Islam," Khamenei said, according to state radio.
"On the one hand they do all they can to hurt the Iranian economy
and on the other, through propaganda and by employing their domestic agents,
they intend to weaken people's beliefs and their faith in the revolution,"
he said in a speech to organisers of the Hajj or pilgrimage to Islamic
holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
The United States broke off ties with Iran in 1980 after Islamic students
stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held staff hostage for over a year,
but it has recently made overtures towards improving relations. Nevertheless
it maintains a unilateral economic embargo first imposed on Iran in 1995,
accusing the Islamic republic of sponsoring international terrorism.
The following year it introduced the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act which
threatens reprisals against any company investing more than 20 million
dollars in those countries' oil sectors.
Iran's economy, which relies on oil for more than 80 percent of its
hard currency, has been hard hit by the slump in crude prices and the government
is attempting to open up the energy industry to foreign investment.
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