Israel Matzav

Iran not ready to talk about nukes

An adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that his country is not ready to discuss its nuclear program next month when it meets with the P 5+1.

"We will not be talking with the Western party about the nuclear energy issue in this round of the negotiation with this party," Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a media adviser to the president, said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Meanwhile, sanctions against Iran are apparently having some effect, but probably not enough - at least as of now.

As security forces swarmed Tehran on Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepared his country in a live television interview for deep cuts in subsidies that have kept the price of everything from bread to gasoline artificially low.

Iranian leaders have sought for decades to remove heavy government subsidies on fuel and food. Ahmadinejad has been struggling for months to implement a so-called targeted subsidies law that redirects cash toward infrastructure and the needy and away from middle-class consumers.

He called on Iranians to tighten their belts and get used to paying more for less.

"When subsidies are being distributed generally, the wealth is being distributed wastefully," Ahmadinejad told an interviewer on state television who praised the economic restructuring plan as "revolutionary." "Targeted subsidies target the gaps in certain strata of society."

He declined to spell out details of the targeted subsidies program, saying everyone was aware of it, even though its inner workings and scheduling remain a mystery to even the most well-informed Iranians.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:08 AM