On Tuesday evening, Mohammadreza Farzin appeared on a special news program to elaborate on the latest decisions and policies of the Central Bank.

He explained that since last Thursday, when the Central Bank issued its statement on the agreed currency market, a wave of coordinated foreign news reports and psychological operations began.

“For instance, at 11 p.m. that day, CNN reported that suspicious Iranian drones were spotted over New Jersey. The following day, discussions about the ‘snapback mechanism’ emerged, Israeli military threats were publicized, a Trump-related threat was covered by The Wall Street Journal, and rumors circulated that China had reduced its purchase of Iranian oil by 300,000 barrels per day. Additionally, it was claimed that China would decrease its oil imports from Iran in the future, all of which were lies,” Farzin said.

He continued, “From the moment we announced the launch of the commercial currency market, a new rumor was spread every few hours. Unfortunately, this led to heightened inflationary expectations, and by Saturday, the unofficial exchange rate had increased in what was clearly a premeditated move.”

The CBI governor stressed that all of these claims were psychological tactics. “Oil production has not decreased, nor have the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Iran is among the top five gold purchasers globally and has one of the highest gold reserves relative to its foreign currency reserves.”

He went on to say that approximately 20% of the country’s foreign exchange reserves have been converted into gold and are held in the Central Bank’s treasury. Based on our total reserves, we maintain one of the highest gold stocks in the world and have no concerns about the future. Both oil production and investments are on the rise.

Farzin concluded by saying that psychological operations are harming the economy, spreading baseless rumors, and creating unnecessary market turmoil despite no real changes occurring.