NPR’s David Green talks to New York Times foreign correspondent Thomas Erdbrink about the atmosphere in Iran now that international sanctions have lifted and Iran can start selling oil to the west again. Erdbrink lives in Tehran and gives great insight on the mood there, reporting that people are cautious and “cynical.”
“People feel as if all these promises made first need to materialize…I think they need to really see that their lives will improve,” comments the reporter. “Their purchasing power has decreased so much over the past 10 to 6 years of several sets of sanctions. A normal average family has trouble, you know, surviving in the way they would like – a normal middle-class family. So when they see that they actually can transfer money to, for instance, their uncle who is living abroad or when they can receive money for the – they start showing out state…. I think that will be the moment that they see, hey, this deal is actually working and our lives are changing.”
