The US is still fundamentally hostile to Iran and its policies have undermined the benefits of sanctions relief, the Islamic Republic’s hardline leader said yesterday, warning Iranians not to trust their old enemy.
Ringing in a new Iranian year at a televised rally in Mashhad, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said fear of US regulations was keeping big foreign companies, particularly in the financial sector, away from Iran.
The uncompromising stance of Iran’s most senior figure poses a challenge to President Hassan Rouhani, the architect of last year’s nuclear deal who hopes to open Iran’s economy to the world.
In keeping with the deal, many international sanctions on Iran were lifted in January. Since then foreign business delegations have flocked to Tehran and billions of dollars of deals have been signed.
But European banks and other companies have stayed away, largely due to remaining US sanctions. That, Khamenei said, was a sign that Iran should be economically self-reliant because the US and its allies were not reliable partners.
“In Western countries and places which are under US influence, our banking transactions and the repatriation of our funds from their banks face problems ... because (banks) fear the Americans,” he said.
“The US Treasury ... acts in such a way that big corporations, big institutions and big banks do not dare to come and deal with Iran,” Khamenei said. The Central Bank of Iran has also said remaining US sanctions have scared off European firms.
To drive the point home, the stage on which Khamenei sat carried a giant banner reading “the year of the Resistance Economy: Action and Implementation”, his chosen slogan for the Iranian
year 1395 that began yesterday.
In a video message earlier, Rouhani said further engagement with other countries was the key to economic growth, a view that has put him increasingly at odds with Khamenei, who outranks him.
“I am sure that with co-operation and effort inside the country, and constructive engagement with the world, our economy can bloom and develop,” Rouhani said.
The president’s allies made gains in parliamentary elections last month that could help him push through reforms in support of a more open economy. But Khamenei and his conservative allies have the power to block new legislation.
Khamenei, a 76-year-old cleric, also urged the young men in the crowd not to forget Iran’s revolutionary history, which he said was proof that the Islamic Republic could stand on its own and that foreign powers were not to be trusted. Business Page 2

Obama offers Iranian holiday greetings
US President Barack Obama offered holiday greetings to Iranians celebrating the first Nowruz, or new year, since a landmark nuclear deal, and welcomed “a chance for a different future” between the two countries.
Tehran and six world powers, including the US, agreed to the deal in July when Iran promised to scale down its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of painful UN and Western sanctions, including on its lifeblood oil exports.
“Every year as president I’ve taken this opportunity, the hope of spring, to speak directly with the people of Iran about how we might open a new window and begin a new relationship with our countries,” Obama said Saturday in a video message to the Iranian people, posted online one day ahead of Nowruz.