Iran threatens to pull out of NPT, scrap snap inspections

The Iranian parliament threatened in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday to force the government to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) if the United States and its allies continued pressuring Teheran to suspend uranium enrichment.

The letter, read on state radio, said Annan and the Security Council must resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme "peacefully, (or) there will be no option for the parliament but to ask the government to withdraw its signature" from an addendum to the treaty that calls for signers to allow intrusive, snap inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the treaty monitoring body.

While the Iranians used the word "peacefully," they were widely seen as referring to a diplomatic solution, short of a Security Council vote and possible sanctions.

The United States is backing attempts by Britain and France to draw up a UN resolution that would declare Iran in violation of international law if it does not suspend uranium enrichment a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or, if sufficiently processed, the materials for atomic weapons.

Iran's antagonists on the issue want to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN charter that would lead to economic sanctions or perhaps military action. Russia and China, the other two Security Council members all of whom can veto any action by the organization as a whole oppose such action.

Iran already had stopped snap IAEA inspections, saying its 2003 agreement was being implemented voluntarily and had not been ratified by parliament and the Guardian Council, a powerful oversight body dominated by Islamic hard-liners. The protocol allows unfettered and unannounced IAEA inspections to ensure overall compliance with the NPT.

Furthermore, the letter said, the lawmakers would order a "review (of) Article 10 of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty," the section of the agreement that outlines procedures for withdrawal.

Article 10 allows signatories to pull out of the treaty if they decide that extraordinary events have jeopardized their own supreme interests. A nation wanting to withdraw must give fellow treaty signers and the UN three months notice and detail events leading up to the decision.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 on that basis.

The US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, dismissed the Iranian parliament's threat and said it would not deter Western nations trying to push through a new UN resolution demanding Teheran stop uranium enrichment. "I'm confident that these statements from Iran will not deter the sponsors of the draft resolution from proceeding in the Security Council," he said.

Bolton said he believed the resolution would move to a vote this week with or without support from Moscow and Beijing.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the official Islamic Republic News Agency the US and its allies "don't give us anything and yet they want to impose sanctions on us." He called threats of sanctions "meaningless" and vowed to "smash their illegitimate resolutions against a wall."

Ahmadinejad also said he would not hesitate to reconsider NPT membership.

"If a signature on an international treaty causes the rights of a nation be violated, that nation will reconsider its decision and that treaty will be invalid," he told IRNA.

Source: China Daily