Parliament think tank urges Iran to keep up work on countering sanctions

Iran’s top policy-making think tank has issued a report recommending the government to carry on with works to counter US sanctions in the upcoming years, saying there is a very low chance that Washington would practically lift the bans in the near future.

Excerpts of the report by the Research Center of Islamic legislative Assembly (RCIIA) published on Tuesday said that Iranian administrative governments should continue formulating economic policies with the assumption that US bans on Iran would stay even in the long-run.

The report said that imposing sanctions on Iran has become an indispensable component of the United States’ security doctrine for the Middle East region, adding that successive governments in the White House have always sought to capitalize on the economic vulnerabilities of Iran to pressure the country politically.

“The notion that a removal of sanctions (in the real sense of the word and not on the paper) would cause an opening and expansion in the Iranian economy is far from reality,” said the report.

A former US government imposed a series of unpresented economic and security sanctions on Iran in May 2018 after it pulled out of an international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The sanctions have largely failed to reach their stated objectives, including to choke off Iran’s vital finances. Experts believe the bans have even backfired by forcing Iran to diversify its economy away from crude export revenues.

The RCIIA report said that policies to counter US sanctions should extend to cover a longer period of time in future, adding that Iran should incorporate works and plans on sanctions in a five-year economic vision which will start in 2022.

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