Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, appeared to nudge his country to shift away from confrontation and toward helping Iranians prosper.
While addressing China-related policy at Tehran’s chamber of commerce, Ghalibaf, who was a key architect of the preliminary peace deal with the US, called for policymakers to focus on everyday Iranians over war.
“We must take over the trench from the launcher boys, lift people out of economic pressure, and build the country,” Ghalibaf said during his remarks, per a translation.
“I don’t want them to be left alone. No. Let’s make their lives easy and healthy. Let us build the country with power. Let us build it in all its parts.”
Ghalibaf also argued that it was important for China to “believe that Tehran is a partner in the full sense.”
Ghalibaf’s remarks come as Iran is poised to get significant economic relief from the memorandum of understanding with the US.
The MOU includes a lifting of America’s naval blockade on Iran, Tehran eventually benefiting from a $300 billion reconstruction fund, waivers on sanctions against Iranian oil, and eventually formal sanction relief if the Islamic Republic meets conditions that will be negotiated.
Under the preliminary deal, Iran agreed that it won’t pursue a nuclear weapon and will wind down its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Details of how that will take place will be decided during negotiations for a more full-fledged deal over the next 60 months.
American critics have argued that Iran can’t be trusted with sanctions relief and will eventually resort to building up its ballistic missile capabilities, funding terrorist proxies in the region, and possibly breaking its obligations against nuclear development.
Iran has been battered by decades of sanctions, economic policy failures, and recent attacks from the US as well as Israel.
Last December into early January, Iran was rocked by massive protests over the cost of living crisis in the country as their currency shed significant value.
“Their economy has been in a freefall for a very long time,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News’ “Hannity” on Monday. “You combine the new leadership, and you combine the fact that their economy is in shambles.”
“I think that they see there’s a real opportunity to turn over a new leaf so long as they do the right thing.”
Vance, who was instrumental during negotiations, also contended that he was “seeing even people that I would have assumed are hardliners who are kind of saying, ‘You know what, maybe it was a mistake for us to do the things that we’ve done over the last 40 years.’”
“‘Maybe we should turn over a new leaf in the relationship with the United States of America.’”
