-Parliamentarians are gearing up to revitalize Iran’s nuclear programme
Middle East Desk
Report
DUBAI: Iran will give a “calculated and decisive” response to the killing of its top nuclear scientist, said a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, while a hardline newspaper suggested Tehran’s revenge should include striking the Israeli city of Haifa.
“Undoubtedly, Iran will give a calculated and decisive answer to the criminals who took Martyr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh from the Iranian nation,” Kamal Kharrazi, who is also head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said in a statement. Fakhrizadeh, long suspected by Western and Israeli government of masterminding a secret nuclear weapons program, was ambushed on a highway near Tehran on Friday and gunned down in his car.
Iran’s clerical and military rulers have blamed the Islamic Republic’s longtime enemy, Israel, for the killing. Iran has in the past accused Israel of killing several Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has declined to comment on the killing. An Israeli cabinet minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, said on Saturday he did not know who carried it out.
Iranian hardline media called on Sunday for a tough revenge. The hardline Kayhan daily, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for an attack on the Israeli port city of Haifa, if an Israeli role in Fakhrizadeh’s killing is proven.
“The attack should be carried out in such a way that in addition to destroying the facilities, it should also cause heavy human casualties,” wrote Saadollah Zarei in an opinion piece.
However, Iran’s rulers are aware of daunting military and political difficulties of attacking Israel. Such an attack would also complicate any effort by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to revive detente with Tehran after he takes office on Jan. 20. Tensions have been high between Tehran and Washington since 2018, when President Donald Trump exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers and reimposed sanctions that have hit Iran’s economy hard. In retaliation, Tehran has gradually breached the deal’s curbs on its nuclear programme.
Biden has said he will return the United States to the deal if Iran resumes compliance. Iran has always denied pursuing nuclear weapons.
Following the assassination of a top nuclear scientist near Tehran, Iran’s conservative parliament has called for a halt to international inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities as a proportionate response to the killing.
In a statement signed by all members of parliament, the legislative body said on Sunday “the hand of the murderous Zionist regime” can be clearly seen in the assassination of top scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed after an explosion and ensuing gunfire on Friday.
According to the lawmakers’ statement, what has emboldened Israel to take this step is a “damaging way of thinking among some government members” who believe negotiating with the West would transform Iran into a “normal” state in its eyes, and Iran must therefore refrain from antagonising it.
“But the experiences of terror and sabotage of the US, Israel and their other allies in the country in recent years, which have unfortunately gone largely without proportionate response, have shown how wrong and dangerous this way of thinking is,” the statement said. The statement, read out at a public session, added that this way of thinking has emboldened rivals, plunging the country into tensions unprecedented since the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that ended in 1988.
Members of parliament called for an “immediate and punitive response” to foreign acts of aggression, the best of which would be to “revive the brilliant nuclear industry of our country”.
That goal, they said, could be achieved through ending the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol, and halting inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Additional Protocol is not a stand-alone agreement but includes voluntary measures that boost the IAEA’s ability to verify the peaceful use of all nuclear materials in a country.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Legal obligation: Exactly one year after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal and embarked on its increasingly intensive “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions in May 2018, the administration of President Hassan Rouhani started gradually scaling back Iran’s nuclear commitments, saying the steps were reversible.
But ever since US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal, conservatives and hardliners have pushed to return Iran’s nuclear programme to the level it was at before the nuclear deal.
They were strengthened when they swept an overwhelming majority of parliament seats after elections in February that saw the lowest voter turnout in the four-decade history of the Islamic Republic.
Sunday’s statement creates no legal obligation for the government and Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, but members of parliament are finalising a bill to create that obligation.
Called the Strategic Act to Revoke Sanctions, the bill creates the grounds for implementation of all the demands in the lawmakers’ statement.
The bill, which contains nine articles, also obligates the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to annually produce at least 120 kilogrammes (about 265 pounds) of 20-percent enriched uranium, revitalise the Fordow plant, and increase the number of advanced centrifuges, among other things. The bill states it aims to bring the nations that signed the agreement, minus the US, back into full compliance with the nuclear deal and ensure Iran reaps the economic benefits promised under the accord. If these conditions are met, the bill envisions also bringing Iran back into full compliance.
The parliament on Sunday agreed to accelerate the bill, which is expected to undergo further reviews later this week. It must be approved the Guardian Council – a powerful 12-member vetting body that reviews all legislation approved by parliament
‘No signal of weakness or trust’: In a speech in parliament on Sunday, speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the Iranian people have experienced many losses like Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, but have persevered.
“This time too, they will prove to enemies that the martyrdom of Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh will open a new window for the country’s progress and make these shameful terrorists and their supporters regretful,” he said.
The politician, who ran against Rouhani in the 2017 presidential elections and is thought to be a potential candidate in next year’s race, said the only way to deter future attacks is to show a “strong reaction”. All forces and organisations in Iran must refrain from sending “any signals indicating weakness or trust to the US political system”, he said.
