Iranian president urges families to have more babies

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Iranian families to have more babies in a bid to "triumph over" Western countries, the Iranian Students news agency ISNA reported on Monday.

The president told the lawmakers here that "I oppose the saying that two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity ... It even has the capacity for 120 million people."

"Westerners have problems as far as population is concerned. Because their population growth is negative," Ahmadinejad said, adding, "They are worried that if our population increases, we will triumph over them."

Iran's current population is about 70 million and the last government has been carrying out a range of birth control measures aimed at limiting Iran's population, said the report.

The Iranian president said his administration was ready to introduce new legislation that would reduce women's working hours in accordance with how many children they had.

Iran's family planning program has been hailed as one of the most successful ones in the world. It is reported that in the 1980s, an Iranian woman had six children on average, and now the number has been reduced to two, according to ISNA.

Source: Xinhua