Hassan Rouhani submitted the government’s final budget to parliament last week. The draft budget of 1400 caused a lot of controversy in Iran. Rouhani’s disagreement with the conservative parliament for not going to parliament to submit the bill, and the continuing deep-rooted problems of the Iranian economy, are just a few of them. There was also a lot of talk about the redundancy of the budget allocated to associations and organizations related to the power of Ali Khamenei and Sipah. However, even in these debates, Azerbaijan and non-Persians in general were forgotten, forgotten.
They did not even give Azerbaijan their own money
It is true that Hassan Rouhani’s government has allocated four times as much oil revenues in its 1,400-budget budget this year, but the current sanctions show that Iran needs separate sources in addition to oil and gas revenues. Although Iran provided tax or financial revenues last year, it also provides part of its main source of income from underground sources. In other words, the Iranian government was more in need of mining revenues. Undoubtedly, Azerbaijan is a paradise for Iranian mines. Therefore, in recent years we have witnessed serious investments in this area.
However, these investments were not made to create jobs, but only to plunder the mines. The mines from Azerbaijan did not bring any simple labor to the population, and due to the irrational work, the environment was seriously damaged. In other words, although Iran is short of oil revenues, it is trying to make a profit by looting the mines. However, most of the extracted minerals are transported raw to places far from Azerbaijan, and factories are built there. For example, copper from Süngün is transported hundreds of kilometers to Kerman.
The shadow of Persian nationalism is heavy
As in all of Iran’s policies, the shadow of Persian nationalism can be seen in its economic policies. All country’s policies are based on this. For example, the mother tongue of at least 70 percent of Iran’s population is Persian, but again, all opportunities are devoted to Persian language and literature. In the budget of 1400, 46 billion tomans were allocated for the Persian language culture. This is despite the fact that dozens of institutions and billions of dollars are spent on the development and spread of the Persian language. But there is not a single budget for the Nobel Prize-winning Arabic and Turkish languages. The budget of the Lake Urmia Conservation Committee, which affects the lives of millions of people, is only 498 million tomans, which is currently the price of an Iranian car. However, the organization, which is controlled by Qasim Suleymani’s daughter, is expected to receive 8.5 billion tomans, or 17 times the amount allocated for the protection of Lake Urmu.
