Tehran, (Samajweekly) The Iranian Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has endorsed a Parliament-ratified “Strategic Action to Lift Embargoes” law, intended to reduce international monitoring of the country’s nuclear program if embargoes were not lifted in the next two months.
“The aforementioned law does not create a specific issue that damages national interests,” Xinhua news agency quoted a statement by the SNSC as saying following the endorsement on Saturday.
What is contrary to national interests and is a matter of concern, the statement said, are controversies that “undermine the dignity and status of the country’s legal institutions and damage national unity and cohesion”.
The SNSC therefore called on all internal Iranian parties to end “fruitless quarrels”, and warned it will not allow national interests to be endangered by “political games”.
The organ underlined that its secretariat has not been involved in the making of the law.
All procedures, it further said, have taken place in accordance with Parliament’s regulations and customary norms.
On December 1, the Iranian Parliament passed the bill, which urges the administration of President Hassan Rouhani to take several steps to increase the country’s nuclear activities for civil purposes, and may decrease international monitoring of these activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA).
The law mandates the government to halt the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol document in two months, in case signatory states of the 2015 landmark nuclear agreement do not “normalize banking relations and completely remove barriers for exporting Iran’s oil”.
Iran has reduced its commitments under the agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in response to the US’ withdrawal from the deal in 2018.
In reaction to the US’ withdrawal and in response to Europe’s sluggishness in facilitating Iran’s banking transactions and oil exports, Tehran has been gradually moving away from its nuclear commitments since May 2019.
