President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said fundamental economic reforms require a firm national will and public cooperation.
In a meeting with over 100 economists on ways of implementing the economic reform plan on Saturday, Ahmadinejad promised to rectify state structures and remove obstacles that hinder public welfare, Fars News Agency reported.
Economic experts and university professors expressed their views about the economic reform plan in the meeting, underlining the need for revamping the faulty economic modus operandi.
They raised issues such as correcting the subsidy system, eliminating or merging parallel institutions, identifying and amending contradictory laws, identifying priorities, participation of PhD and master’s degree students in the implementation of the plan, confronting corruption and increasing the capacities of the private sector. The president rejected the claim that the government does not believe in economic theories and that its measures have no scientific justification.
“Those who make this claim cannot respond to the faults found with theories they have put forth to the government. God knows that I talk about key concepts of the science of economics in a language that ordinary man can understand,“ he said.
Ahmadinejad stressed that the government does not view the plan as a short-term enterprise.
Emphasizing that the people want change in all facets, he said, “If a plan is compiled in accordance with the public interests, then the people will support it. People have high capacities in accepting changes. The good case in point is the huge plan for rationing gasoline.“
Speaking in a meeting between the Cabinet and governors general on Sunday, Ahmadinejad said the authorities continue to serve the public without paying attention to the disheartening propaganda spread against them.
“For carrying out any revolutionary plan, it is necessary to overcome tough problems. This is the norm for any major accomplishment,“ he was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
“National development is a difficult task and all those who strive for improvement and betterment face tough barriers,“ he said.
Praising the constructive endeavors of his administration, Ahmadinejad said, “The more intense the enemy’s propaganda warfare becomes, the more we realize we are on the right path.“

See Page Middle East

A senior Russian official has criticized the US for offering only “empty proposals“ on replacing the START I nuclear arms treaty, which expires next year.
Briefing journalists ahead of Monday’s meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US counterpart George W. Bush at the G8 summit in Japan, Kremlin foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, called on the US to reach a new agreement by the end of the year, AFP cited an Interfax report.
“In the words of the US side, there is a willingness to achieve
agreement on the replacement of the START I treaty,“ Prikhodko told the news agency.
“But in fact there is no movement. As before, Russia is being offered empty proposals in the form of transparency measures that exclude control over strategic missiles and several other components of START I.“
Prikhodko said he hoped “the current impasse could be overcome and a mutually acceptable understanding be reached by the end of the year“ before Bush steps down in January.
“The global community expects this from us,“ he said.
The START I treaty was drawn up by the United States and then Soviet Union to limit each side’s intercontinental nuclear arsenals and was ratified in 1994 after modifications to take account of the Soviet collapse.
It has a 15-year lifespan and expires in December next year, although there is an option to renew.

At least 15 people were killed across Iraq on Sunday, including seven by a bomb targeting a local leader of President Jalal Talabani’s political party, officials said.
The bomb exploded in the town of Qara Tappa in the restive province of Diyala outside the house of Mohammed Ramadan Eisa, a local leader of Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the town’s mayor Sherwan Shukra said.
“Eisa was seriously wounded in the blast but his wife, mother-in-law, his two children, one brother and two of his guards were killed,“ Shukra told AFP.
Qara Tappa is 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Baquba, the provincial capital.
“The incident occurred when all the victims were standing in front of the house. They were probably getting ready to go somewhere,“ Shukra said.
A local police officer said three more of Eisa’s guards were wounded in the blast.
In another attack in Diyala province, this time in the town of Kana’an, one civilian was killed and four were wounded when an army patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb, a police officer said.
Another civilian was killed when police clashed with ’rogue’ members of a local anti-Qaeda group in central Baquba, the officer added.
Diyala remains one of the most dangerous provinces in Iraq, and despite several military assaults against insurgents there the region has seen sustained attacks, especially suicide bombings by women.

Newly released video footage shows an Israeli settler badly beating a Palestinian man outside a West Bank settlement, the second such incident captured on film in less than a month.
Mithat Abu Karsh, 30, said he and several other residents of the Palestinian village of Samua in the southern West Bank were trying to work their lands near the unauthorized settlement outpost of Asael on Saturday when they were accosted by settlers. The settlers set fire to the fields, then seized Abu Karsh, tied him and beat him, he said.
Bruises and red marks were visible on his face and elsewhere on his body, AFP reported.
Footage released by the International Solidarity Movement shows a man sitting bound on the ground next to several Israeli soldiers. A settler then approaches and kicks the man in the head before one of the soldiers pushes the settler away.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said one Israeli was arrested at the scene on suspicion of assault. Six Palestinians were questioned on suspicion of provoking the incident by setting fire to the field, but they were later released, he said.
In a similar attack in the same area on June 8, settlers left an elderly Palestinian couple and their nephew wounded from blows to the head, face and hands. That incident was also caught on camera.
Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said such attacks are getting more publicity because they are now videotaped more often.
Since last year, B’Tselem has been equipping Palestinians with video cameras in order to document settler violence and spur the Israeli police to take action against offenders.
Unauthorized settlement outposts like Asael were built against Israeli law, but typically with the tacit or active cooperation of Israeli authorities. The outposts are home to some of the more extreme Israeli settlers.