UPDATE, MARCH 22:

In his speech for Iranian New Year, the Supreme Leader again portrayed an economy which does need a renewed nuclear deal with the US and the other 5+1 Powers (UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia).

Ayatollah Khamenei warned officials not make economic development conditional on the removal of sanctions.

New policies have shown that it is possible to promote foreign trade in spite of US sanctions and it is possible to enter into regional deals while developing the country’s oil sector.

Of course, I am not saying that we should not seek removal of US sanctions. However, the fundamental point is that we must run the country in a way that it would not be harmed by sanctions.

He repeated his declaration of the Year of “Knowledge-Based and Job-Creating Production”, “In the economy, the most important issue is the issue of production….This important economic problem will be solved if we move toward the knowledge-based economy.”

ORIGINAL ENTRY: In his message for Iran’s New Year, the Supreme Leader has ignored nuclear talks — at a critical point amid a Russian ultimatum stalling completion — and proclaimed a “Year of Knowledge-Based and Job-Creating Production”.

Ayatollah Khamenei has often used the Nowruz message to declare Iranian self-sufficiency. In 2012, he announced a “Resistance Economy”. Last year, he announced 12 months of “production, support, and removal of barriers”.

The proclamations have more often been symbol rather than substance as Iran has endured years of economic problems, both from internal difficulties and from US-led sanctions.

The renewal of the 2015 nuclear deal offered the prospect of sanctions removal. However, with delegations saying they were close to resolution, the negotiations were complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any deal must include a provision for removal of US sanctions on Moscow over Vladimir Putin’s war. After criticism from Iran, Moscow pulled back to say it wanted no-sanction guarantees only over areas of Russian support for Iran’s civil nuclear program.

See also EA on PTV World: Russia’s Failed Gamble Over Iran Nuclear Talks

Khamenei ignored the developments in his Monday speech. Instead, he asserted that “the Iranian nation won” against the “maximum pressure” of the Trump Administration while saying, “Problems that exist for the livelihood of the people, the issue of high prices, inflation and the like — well, these problems must definitely be solved.”

The Supreme Leader gave no details on how his slogan would deal with the problems, but declared:

National production is indeed the main path that needs to be taken for moving past the economic hardships and difficulties that exist in the country. In other words, the most important economic issues of the country can be resolved by boosting and improving national production.

In his first New Year’s message after his managed election last June, President Ebrahim Raisi followed Khamenei’s lead: “During the current year, God willing, the issue of employment will be our first and foremost issue.”

Raisi mentioned the nuclear talks only to say that their resolution was not essential for Iran’s economic recovery:

We said that the country and the economy would not be left in limbo pending [the conclusion] of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. Everybody saw that while engaging in negotiations and taking advantage of political and legal means to dealing with the crime of sanctions, we also put our focus on thwarting sanctions.