A leading conservative cleric and regime insider, Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, has said that without talks with the West the situation for Iran will remain difficult.

A news website in Tehran quoted Moghaddam, a member of several key government bodies, as saying, “Our economic conditions are unfortunately under the influence of increasing American sanctions and pressures, especially on our currency, leading to its depreciation.”

Iran’s currency has halved in value since mid-2022 reaching unprecedented lows in the past six months, fueling more inflation that can lead to more antigovernment protests. On Sunday the rial was trading at 535,000 to the US dollar, while before the United States imposed sanctions in 2018, it was trading at around 35,000.

Moghaddam is one of the few clerics who studied economics said that in addition to sanctions, psychological factors also hurt the value of the rial. He argued that with nuclear negotiations with the West at a standstill and recent unrest in Iran, confidence in the economy and the currency have weakened.

The latest point-to-point inflation rate has reached 64 percent, and some experts are warning of hyper-inflation.

The influential cleric tried to sound optimistic by praising some recent government measures adopted to help the rial, but the currency has a downward trajectory as long as Iran is unable to export sufficient oil and balance its budget.

Despite the economic crisis, Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies that are controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have not changed so far to ease tensions with the West.