Tehran, April 20: The Iranian president has downplayed the West’s sanctions against the Islamic Republic, saying they have caused Iran to achieve self-sufficiency in various fields.
“Thank God that the enemies put sanctions on us,” IRNA quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of Tehran University’s Faculty of Modern Sciences and Technologies.
Ahmadinejad recalled the country’s leap last year for self-sufficiency in the field of gasoline production after unilateral sanctions by the US and its Western allies targeted the country’s oil and gas sector.
“As soon as they told us ‘We won’t sell gasoline to you,’ we started producing petrol inside the country and in fact moved toward utmost self-sufficiency,” he said.
The chief of Iran’s executive body highlighted the need for the country to make progress in all fields to become “a model” for other nations in the world.
“If a nation is at the top from a cultural point of view but in the rear regarding lifestyle, their best ideas will not sell in the world because comprehensive progress serves as proof to a nation’s righteousness and values,” he pointed out.
Ahmadinejad also insisted that the Iranian nation enjoys unrivaled potentials and capacities.
“I believe that the world standard in no field is out of reach of Iranian talents and that we need to move ahead,” he said.
——–Agencies