AFP: Iran’s hardline parliament may push though a law on suspending membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the Security Council pressures Tehran to freeze sensitive atomic work, a top MP warned Tuesday.
TEHRAN, July 18, 2006 (AFP) – Iran’s hardline parliament may push though a law on suspending membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the Security Council pressures Tehran to freeze sensitive atomic work, a top MP warned Tuesday.
“If the Security Council wants to pass a resolution obliging a halt of uranium enrichment, parliament will undoubtedly bring up the issue of suspending Iran’s NPT membership,” Alaeddin Borujerdi was quoted as saying by students news agency ISNA.
“We hope that the Security Council does not make an unreasonable decision that changes Iran’s current attitude,” said the MP, who heads parliament’s influential national security and foreign policy commission.
Up to now, he insisted, Iran has been “respecting the NPT and the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
Last week Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States decided to send Iran’s case back to the Security Council after Tehran failed to respond to demands it freeze uranium enrichment.
Iran says it only wants to enrich to levels needed to make reactor fuel and that this is a right under the NPT. But the technology can be extended to make weapons, hence demands for a suspension while an IAEA probe is still in progress.
Diplomats say the Council could vote as early as next week on a draft resolution that would make a freeze legally binding.
Iran resumed enrichment in January, and has already ignored a non-binding Security Council demand for the work to stop.
