By DPA,
Hamburg : The Iranian parliament is to discuss a bill on reducing cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Fars news agency reported Saturday.
Parliament deputy Hami-Reza Fouladgar told Fars that the bill will be raised Sunday in parliament with the aim of revising and reducing cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog following this week’s UN resolution against the Islamic state.
The UN Security Council Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of its fourth sanctions resolution against Iran.
The Iranian parliament had several times warned that in case of a renewed UN resolution against Tehran, the deputies would approve a bill obliging the government to reduce cooperation with the IAEA.
The parliament voted in 2005 to stop the implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol – which would allow the IAEA to have snap and wider inspections of Iranian nuclear sites.
It was not yet clear whether the parliament would also discuss Iran’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Meanwhile Vice President Ali-Akbar Salehi told official news agency IRNA Saturday that consultations would now be held with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on how to proceed on future cooperation with the IAEA.
Ahmadinejad has warned several times warned that Iran would no longer negotiate with world powers if sanctions were imposed on Iran – but he has not yet mentioned any revision of ties with the IAEA.
Salehi, who is also head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, added that Japan promised through its ambassador to Tehran that it would construct a new nuclear site if Iran agreed with the uranium exchange deal.
“Now that the exchange deal was finalized (last month), we expect that Japan fulfils its promise,” Salehi told IRNA.
Salehi was referring to a deal struck last month with Turkey and Brazil to ship Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Turkey for storage, in exchange for medium-enriched uranium as nuclear fuel for Tehran’s medical research centre.
The so-called Tehran agreement was based on an October proposal by the IAEA to have Iranian uranium enriched in Russia and processed into fuel in France. Those negotiations broke down when Iran insisted that the uranium-fuel swap take place on its soil.
Salehi said that Iran would not let the output of the Tehran reactor be stopped, indicating that Iran would continue enrichment process at 20 per cent level to secure the necessary fuel for the capita’s medical reactor.
“The Western powers should eventually acknowledge the Tehran agreement in order not to further drown in the quagmire of Iran’s nuclear programme,” Salehi warned.
Iran said that, as signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it had an internationally acknowledged right to pursue peaceful nuclear
technology.
The world powers, however, fear that Iran might use the same technology for a secret military programme and build an atomic bomb.