Highlights of the week

Oil embargo comes into effect; Iran continues to show resolve

Iran’s public and media discourse increasingly concerned with continuing price increases

What is the Islamic historical parallel to Iran’s current situation?

President gets into political confrontation with critics and top clerics over his decision to appoint new governor in Qom Province

Oil embargo comes into effect; Iran continues to show resolve

The embargo on Iranian oil exports imposed by the European Union came into effect earlier this week. Mehr News Agency reported this weekend that four cabinet members had convened for a special meeting last Wednesday, June 27, to discuss possible ways of dealing with the embargo. The ministers of economy, industry, and petroleum, as well as the governor of Iran’s Central Bank, held their meeting at the Central Bank, where they spent several hours developing potential courses of action. The proposed courses of action were then presented to President Ahmadinejad, who had given the cabinet members special instructions on the necessary preparations for dealing with the sanctions (Mehr, June 29).

Economy Minister Shamsoldin Hosseini reported that, in the past several days, he had held a number of meetings with the president, government ministers, and top officials to discuss the measures that need to be taken in light of the recent developments. He noted that the effects of the sanctions can be observed at both the practical and the psychological levels. At the practical level, the sanctions make money transfers more difficult, but Iran has been able to successfully deal with the restrictions imposed on it, Hosseini said. At the psychological level, however, the sanctions still exert a visible influence on developments on the foreign currency exchange market (ISNA, June 29).

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