Ibrahim Rezaei, the spokesperson for the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated that the legislative body has settled on a draft legislative text, as reported by the Tasnim International News Agency. Rezaei added, “In these circumstances, the parliament sees no justification for Iran remaining a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” noting that the draft legislation has not yet been placed on the parliament’s official agenda.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, stated that “the agency has resumed inspections of Iran’s facilities but has not received permission to access the 60% enriched uranium stockpile.” He added that “Iran is strongly protecting its 60% enriched uranium stockpile as it believes it remains vulnerable to further attacks,” explaining that “increasing the enrichment level of Iran’s uranium stockpile to 90% is a matter of weeks, not months or years.”
The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that “assessing the extent of the rollback in Iran’s nuclear program after the attacks is difficult without inspections,” noting that “Iran’s nuclear program is no longer as we knew it but it can be rebuilt.” According to Grossi, “Iran still possesses the necessary means to manufacture the centrifuges required to enrich its uranium stockpile.”
It is noted that the 2015 nuclear agreement has been faltering since the United States withdrew from it during the first term of U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Western powers and Israel have long accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies. Tensions increased after the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last June, which led to a disruption and pushed Iran to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Trump had attempted, during his previous term, to activate what is known as the “snapback sanctions mechanism” in 2020, but failed due to his country’s unilateral withdrawal from the agreement two years earlier. Despite repeated attempts by European powers to revive the 2015 agreement through negotiations, asserting that they “have a clear legal basis” to activate the mechanism, Iran disagrees with this view and has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the “snapback sanctions mechanism” is activated.
