Mr. Mohammad Baqir Nowbakht told the press that the government had been committed to protection of Iran’s national interests. He was speaking about a US court verdict to appropriate Iranian Central Bank assets for as compensation of the families of US military personnel killed during a blast in a military base in Beirut in 1983 for which Iran has been accused without any evidence and Iran has strongly rejected involvement in the incident; “in terms of retaliation, now Iranian courts have verdicts against the US worth of billions of dollars. These cases could be exploited when necessary as counterbalance for US court verdict; the cabinet however has established a special workgroup to address the appropriation of assets, which published its first statement earlier this week,” Nowbakht told the press.
“The cumulative efforts by the Parliament and the cabinet will exhaust every possibility and resource to protect Iranian assets and or overturn the US court verdict,” he added.
On a question of possibility of reopening of Canadian embassy in Tehran, Nowbakht responded that the government had welcomed opening the embassy; “the present government of Canada has condemned its former cabinet’s decisions and policies as damaging bilateral interests; so, we think the decision will broaden our relations to a country which is part of the international community and fits our grand policy of interaction with the world,” he asserted.
On the hot and controversial issue of the Parliament speaker election of the new 10th parliament to convene next June, Nowbakht said that the cabinet would observe the autonomy of power branches and would thus not intervene in the process of Parliament speaker election; “the decision will remain with representatives to select their speaker,” he said.
Nowbakht also rejected any speculations about changes in cabinet composition as baseless and mere figment of imagination. On the issue of attraction of foreign investments after JCPOA implementation, cabinet spokesperson said that $3.4bn in foreign investments had been made in 41 economic projects across the country.
SH/3661011