TEHRAN – Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has called on the government to provide a solution to rising inflation.

“We do not need the government officials to devise ideological subjects; instead, they should be seeking to resolve economic problems,” he told a group of Revolutionary Guards Corps officials in a meeting on Sunday.
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has faced mounting criticism for his economic policies which have pushed inflation to over 26 percent.
Turning to Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West, Larijani said the major powers are easily using the International Atomic Energy Agency to step up pressure on the Islamic Republic.
The West is not troubled by Iran’s nuclear program but by the power that Tehran exercises in Middle East, he opined.
“The IAEA seems to be the most useless international organization. Whenever we reach an agreement with the agency, the world powers immediately issue new sanctions against us,” noted the Majlis speaker who handled Iran’s nuclear talks with the European Union and the UN nuclear watchdog before he resigned as the Supreme National Security Council secretary.
The United States and Britain said on Wednesday the six world powers had agreed to consider more UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but Russia said there was no firm deal.
The UN Security Council has so far imposed three rounds sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany last month offered Iran an enhanced package of incentives in exchange for a freeze in Tehran’s enrichment work.
The package which follows an original proposal in 2006 offers nuclear cooperation as well as wider trade in agriculture, aircraft, high technology, and energy.
However, the Islamic Republic has ruled out suspension of its nuclear program as a precondition for talks with the world powers, insisting that, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has the right to use nuclear technology for civilian uses