Iran comes in from the cold

by Gareth Smith January 9, 2014

written by Gareth Smith January 9, 2014

So far, so good. Few would have expected the early months of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency to go so well. World powers including the United States have, at least for now, abandoned the United Nations Security Council requirement for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment — allowing Rouhani to claim they have recognized Iran’s ‘right’ to a nuclear program. Talk has resumed of a negotiated solution in Syria. At the same time the president has promised that, regardless of any easing in sanctions, better economic management and tighter fiscal discipline will lead by March 2015 to renewed growth (GDP fell 5.8 percent in the year ending March 2013) and reduced inflation, from 40 percent to 24 percent. Should sanctions be lifted beyond the six months of November’s interim Geneva agreement then the economy will pick up faster. In his first draft budget, announced last month, Rouhani seeks to balance the books

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

Iran comes in from the cold

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