TEHRAN, January 19 (MNA) – A lawmaker criticized President Hassan Rouhani’s recent remarks that he cannot tackle the current challenges by only looking at the domestic capacities, saying the government is seeking to increase the western countries' presence in the country.“While the Iranians have just renewed their alliance with Islamic Revolution and the resistance movement’s ideals, the president has, unfortunately, announced that he cannot move along the nation and look into the domestic capacities for tackling the current problems,” Ahmad Alirezabeigi, a member of the Parliament’s Velayi faction told Mehr News Agency on Sunday.

The parliamentarian also criticized the government for trying to “set the West’s footprints in the country” under the pretext of the inability to overcome problems on its own.

Rouhani said on Thursday that dialogue with the world remained "possible" despite high tensions with the US This is while the past year’s experiences have proved the Western countries’ failure in protecting the Islamic Republic from unilateral US sanctions on Tehran after Washington abandoned the nuclear deal.

MNA/4827925