under plans to sharply cut government subsides and ease pressure on an economy struggling with international sanctions.

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The so-called economic “surgery” has been planned for months, but was repeatedly delayed over worries of a repeat of gas riots in 2007 and serious political infighting during the standoff with the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

 But the timing for the first painful steps – just after a first round of nuclear talks with international powers and a second planned for early next year – suggests one of the world’s leading oil producers is feeling the sting of tightened sanctions. And it might open more room for possible compromises with world powers, including the United States, in exchange for easing the economic squeeze.

 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranians in a nationally televised speech Saturday that it was finally time to begin trimming the state subsidies that lowered the costs of bread and cooking oil and gave Iran some of the cheapest fuel pump prices in the world. He also noted that he saw “positive points” in talks earlier this month with six nations that hold important sway over sanctions: the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany.

 ”Iran’s top leadership is puzzled about the tightening sanctions and their long-term implications on Iran’s economy. Ahmadinejad has labeled those sanctions a joke, but the Iranian people are not laughing,” said Ehsan Ahrari, an analyst based in Alexandria, Virginia.

 The overnight price rises – gas rising fourfold in some cases – follows upheaval in the heart of Ahmadinejad’s government. Last week, he abruptly dismissed longtime foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, while he was on a diplomatic mission to Africa in favor of interim replacement, nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

 The move sends a message that Iran’s leadership had tired of Mottaki’s challenges to Ahmadinejad and sought a more unified government at a critical time. In his first public comment, Mottaki on Sunday called his blindside firing “un-Islamic, undiplomatic and offensive,” according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

 In Tehran, meanwhile, riot police took up posts around the major intersections as the subsidy cuts took effect. There were loud complaints by consumers, but no signs of the violence in 2007, when the government imposed limits on the purchase of subsidized gasoline.