Iranian Govt accountable for the state of country: US

Hillary Clinton said the government in Tehran is accountable for the situation inside the country.

Washington: With reports of protests from Iran over the collapse of the Iranian currency, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said the government in Tehran is accountable for the situation inside the country. "I think the Iranian government deserves responsibility for what is going on inside Iran. And that is who should be held accountable," Clinton told reporters in a joint media availability with the visiting Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrisov. "I think they have made their own government decisions, having nothing to do with sanctions, that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside the country," she said. "Of course, the sanctions have had an impact as well, but those could be remedied in short order if the Iranian government were willing to work with the P-5 plus one and the rest of the international community in a sincere manner," she said in response to a question. Clinton said the US goal has been to persuade the Iranian regime to negotiate seriously with the international community over its nuclear programme, to fulfill its obligation to the International Atomic Energy Agency and to the United Nations, expeditiously. "We have always said that we had a dual-track approach to this, and one track was trying to put pressure on the Iranian government to come to the negotiating table and to do just as I have described, to reach a peaceful resolution of the many legitimate questions that surround their nuclear programme and ambitions," said the Secretary of State. PTI