Iran's leader wants “cultural and economic jihad” to “disappoint” enemies. Mojtaba Khamenei's message
Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since becoming Iran's supreme leader, issued a written statement Friday urging his people to wage an economic and cultural battle to “disappoint” the country's enemies, according to AFP.
The Islamic Republic has “proved its progress and excellence to the world in a military battle with the enemies,” Khamenei said, but “it must also disappoint and defeat them in the stage of cultural and economic jihad.”
He called for “prioritizing the consumption of domestically manufactured goods” and said “affected business owners should avoid layoffs and separation of the workforce as much as possible.”
Despite the truce that took effect on April 8, the US military has continued to block Iranian ports, disrupting oil shipments to the country, whose inflation has topped 50 percent in recent weeks, according to the national statistics center.
Iran's rial fell to a record low against the dollar this week, according to currency monitoring agencies, and a labor official said 191,000 people had filed for unemployment after losing their jobs due to the effects of the war.
How Khamenei's people explain his absence from the public space
Mojtaba Khamenei's message comes on the day one of his advisers said he is “completely fine” and “supervising negotiations” with the United States, even though he has not been seen in public since taking office on March 8, according to CNN.
Mojtaba Khamenei took over the position after the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Public communication from Iran's new supreme leader, who was himself wounded in the attack, has since been limited to a few messages attributed to him by Iranian media, with no video or audio appearances. The situation fueled speculation about the extent of his injuries.
“It's a trick of the enemy. They want to say: why doesn't he show up? Why doesn't he send voicemails or condolence messages?” Qomi, one of Khamenei's advisers, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.
