TEHRAN, February 1. /TASS/: A bill on Iran’s quitting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was submitted to the parliament’s commission on national security and foreign policy on Saturday, ISNA news agency said.
The bill was signed by 19 lawmakers. Provided that the commission approves it, it could be put to voting at Majles, the Iranian parliament.
On January 20, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Tehran will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty once Europe submits the case on Tehran’s violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to the United Nations Security Council.
On January 14, Germany, the United Kingdom and France said they had "been left with no choice, given Iran’s actions," but to trigger a dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal (or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA). Iran’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will in fact mean the end to the deal.
Iran nuclear deal
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed between Iran and six international mediators (the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, the United States, and France) in July 2015. Under the deal, Iran undertook to curb its nuclear activities and place them under total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange of abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.
Iran pledged not to enrich uranium above the level of 3.67% for 15 years and maintain enriched uranium stockpiles at the level not exceeding 300 kg, as well as not to build new heavy-water reactors, not to accumulate heavy water and not to develop nuclear explosive devices.
The future of the deal was called in question after the United States’ unilateral pullout on May 8, 2018 and Washington’s unilateral oil export sanctions against Tehran. Iran argues that all other participants, Europeans in the first place, ignore some of their own obligations in the economic sphere, thus making the deal in its current shape senseless. This said, it began to gradually scale down its commitments under the deal.
