Meeting with Obama not in agenda for Rouhani

TEHRAN, Sep. 17 (MNA) – Iran’s government spokesman has said President Rouhani will be in New York to attend UN Annual General Assembly.

Mohammad Baqer Nowbakht told reporters on Wednesday that Hassan Rouhani had not in agenda a meeting with the US president Barack Obama. The 69th UN General Assembly was opened on Tuesday in the UN headquarters in New York. According to timetable, Rouhani’s speech will be on morning session of Thursday September 25.

Nowbakht assessed agreements between Iran and Russia as effective, which would benefit both countries. “Russia now feels the hardships of sanctions Iran had been bearing during last few decades,” he added.

Asked whether government would draft an anti-inflationary budget for next week, Nowbakht said that the next year’s economic policy would continue the current year’s anti-inflationary plus plans to come out of recession in line with principles of Resistance Economy.

Nowbakht rejoiced to announce that the negative rate of growth was declining in last March, with positive growth rate beginning in April.

He criticized what he called ‘institutions and organizations consuming government budgets in culture,’ and which would not be responsible for their poor performance in promoting culture in the society. “The government allocates millions of dollars to culture, which non-governmental institutes also get their share of this budget; these institutions should provide the government with their achievements and a yearly report on how they have used budget,” he asserted. “The government would not tolerate violent and uncultured methods of enforcing hijab laws; these methods have proved to be ineffectual, however the responsible enforcement agencies have received the backlash from their gross methods,” Nowbakht said, and that “the responsible organizations in the government would implement the law against any parties unauthorized attempts in the streets trying to enforce hijab on people.”

On the question that the international community has attacked Iran under the pretexts of human rights and freedom issues, he said that the government would not allow such charges to be raised against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

On Iran’s participation in the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, Nowbakht said that there was no need for coordination with the US on fighting ISIL; “the US had signaled their willing for Iran to cooperate in the coalition; the US is responsible for the success of its airstrikes against the ISIL,” he added.