TEHRAN, 21 November 2005 — Iranian lawmakers yesterday voted to oblige their government to stop allowing snap UN checks of atomic sites and to resume uranium enrichment if Tehran is sent to the UN Security Council.
In the vote, broadcast live on state radio, 183 out of 197 lawmakers present voted for the bill. The legislation must now be approved by Iran’s constitutional watchdog, the conservative 12-man Guardian Council.
Iran faces referral to New York for possible sanctions after failing to convince the world its atomic scientists are focusing on power stations rather than warheads.
Lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Parliament’s Foreign Policy and Security Commission, exhorted opposition parliamentarians from the reformist camp to show a united front in the national interest. “This is not a factional, political issue — it is a national issue,” he said in the debate. The bill calls for Iran’s government to stop following the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows snap UN checks of atomic sites.
It also calls on Iran to resume all activities that it stopped voluntarily. Foremost among these is the moratorium on enriching uranium. Despite Western pressure on it to halt nuclear activity, Iran earlier this week said it had begun processing a new batch of uranium. Iran insists on developing its own nuclear fuel cycle to produce fuel for power stations.
Iran also said yesterday that it would not bow to UN nuclear agency demands to visit a suspect military site in Tehran unless it provides “concrete proof” to justify an inspection. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi nevertheless said a new report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei does “not contain any negative points” and insisted a two-year-old probe should be closed.
El-Baradei’s report, released ahead of an IAEA meeting on Thursday, notes that “Iran’s full transparency is indispensable and overdue”. His agency is investigating suspicions that Iran is using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons development.
The report also says Iran is still denying access to “military-owned workshops and research and development locations”. The IAEA wants to return to the Lavizan-Shian area in Tehran, site of a physics research center that was dismantled and the ground razed before IAEA inspectors paid an initial visit in June 2004.
