LATEST: Iranian Military Calls for New Intifada in Palestine’s West Bank
The International Monetary Fund has given a boost to the Rouhani Government, hailing its policies and a recovery in Iran’s economy.
The IMF praised reductions in energy subsidies and said that they, along with the easing of international sanctions, had stemmed rising prices and reversed Iran’s fall in GDP.
“The process of stabilization has taken hold and we do see the results already in a dramatic improvement in inflation,” Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, told reporters in Tehran.
The IMF projects that Iran, whose GDP fell 5.8% between March 2012 and March 2013 and further declined in 2013-2014, will have a growth rate of 1.5% this year.
However, Ahmed said that growth is still “not what it needs to be to meet the aspirations of the Iranian people”.
The official rate of inflation has fallen from more than 40% when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left the Presidency last August to just over 25%, and the Government has pledged to bring it to single digits by 2015. The currency has stabilized; however, unemployment is still high, especially among young Iranians, and Iran’s oil exports are still 40% below the levels of 2012.
Iranian Military Calls for New Intifada in Palestine’s West Bank
The Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces, General Massoud Jazayeri, has called for a new intifada by Palestinians in the West Bank following Israel’s war on Gaza.
“The type of struggle in the West Bank should change so that the world will see serious withdrawal of the occupiers,” Jazayeri said on Tuesday.
He claimed that armed resistance “accompanied by other power elements available to the main owners of the Palestinian territories can return the violated rights of the Palestinians to them”.
The Supreme Leader, as well as Iran’s top commanders, have called for weapons to be supplied to the West Bank as well as Gaza to confront Israel.
