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Iran MPs Speak on Ratified Bill Threatening End to UN Nuclear Checks

Posted on: Monday, 21 November 2005, 09:00 CST

Text of report by Iranian newspaper Aftab-e Yazd website on 21 November

Kazem Jalali, the rapporteur of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee said: "If Iran's nuclear dossier is reported or referred to the Security Council, the world, this region and Europe will have to pay a heavy price," IRNA reports. The Shahrud representative said yesterday during the debate on the bill to obligate the government to suspend voluntary activities [implementing the additional protocol to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty], "We representatives are standing by the rights of the people of Iran. It is the Europeans who have violated the Paris Accord."

He said legislators "will ratify this bill to defend the rights of the Iranian people, but we still say, negotiate, though we mean negotiations with an aim." He commented on the process of nuclear negotiations: "After the Tehran statement, we implemented the additional protocol as a confidence-building but legally non- binding measure, and before the September 2004 session, we presented a 1,030-page report, and imagined Iran's dossier would be closed in that session But America came up with its 'trigger policy' which the Europeans rejected. We were negotiating with the Europeans from September to October 2004, which finally led to the Paris Accord."

He commented on stopping the nuclear fuel cycle: "We halted it in the hope of normalizing our dossier in the [IAEA] Governing Board. Talks continued in the framework of the Paris Accord, but the Europeans were asking for a full cessation of nuclear activities. Europe's comprehensive suggestions were to be made after presidential elections in Iran, when they took a negative view. Their proposal was to end the nuclear fuel cycle, and that meant an end to negotiations." The legislator continued: "Even Agency inspectors carried out their inspections of nuclear and non-nuclear sites on the basis of the lies of terrorist organizations." The Shahrud deputy commented on the president's proposal for foreign participation in investment for the nuclear fuel cycle: "Iran's confidence-building measures have been abused by Westerners. We want negotiations and the peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue, and declare with this bill that if the dossier is referred or reported to the Security Council, it means Westerners are pushing our dossier toward crisis."

After Jalali's comments, Sanandaj MP Hushang Hamidi spoke against the outlines of the bill and said "nuclear energy is our evident right, but why has the diplomatic apparatus had a weak performance so far? With this bill, we are dragging the nuclear issue toward politicization, which is what the Europeans want." Ala'eddin Borujerdi, the head of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee then said that "Iran has an evident right to attain nuclear energy, and we are standing firmly by this right as the people's representatives."

He said Al-Baradi'i's report was positive and "America has undertaken an extensive political effort by presenting CDs and such things, to take our dossier off its ordinary course and refer it to the Security Council."

Gholamreza Aqazadeh, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization, also told MPs: "Your vote today conveys the message that if the opposite party wants talks to continue, the framework of talks must be clarified, and the people of Iran will not forego their rights under any conditions. The second message of the ratified bill is that if the Governing Board were to move outside the rights of nations, they too will stop their voluntary measures." An open session of parliament will examine the bill in detail on Tuesday.

Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

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