Why we should be talking to Iran | Jonathan Steele | Comment is free | The Guardian:
"The shaded alleys of the Grand Bazaar in Tehran are awash with crowds, though to the chagrin of shopkeepers most people just wander by. Sanctions have reduced purchasing power, as did the mismanagement of the Ahmadinejad era –inflation rose to 45% in mid-2013. Now under Hassan Rouhani, elected president two years ago, inflation is down to 15%, and the economy is expected to grow this year by about 1%. If sanctions are lifted, Iran’s central bank expects a surge of an extra 2%.
Yet one commodity pulses in abundance through the bazaar’s maze of corridors: hope. It spurts up in conversation whoever you turn to. “We wish, we dream for sanctions to be lifted. We had eight bad years under Ahmadinejad. Sanctions were caused by his denial of the Holocaust,” said Ali, an elderly jeweller. “Under Rouhani the economy has already improved. The value of the rial is rising. Inflation is less.”
Darius sells women’s clothes, and a decade ago he was not allowed to display bras, even on the plastic torsos of legless, faceless mannequins. That is now possible, a small sign of gradual liberalisation, but he too complains that “in the eight years of Ahmadinejad the economy got worse year by year. After the nuclear negotiations we hope it will be better.”"
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