Iran Threatens to Quit Nuclear Treaty

Associated Press

The Iranian parliament threatened Sunday to force the government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the United States continues pressuring Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan read on state-run radio, the lawmakers said they would consider forcing the withdrawal if "the U.N. Secretary General and other members of the U.N. Security Council fail in their crucial responsibility to resolve differences peacefully."

The legislators said they would have no choice but to "review Article 10 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty." The article allows signatories to pull out of the treaty if they decide that extraordinary events have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. A withdrawing nation must give fellow treaty signers and the U.N. three months notice and detail the events that have forced the decision to pullout of the agreement.

North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 on that basis.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, dismissed the threat and said it would not deter Western nations trying to push through a new U.N. Security Council resolution to demand Iran stop uranium enrichment.

"This is a typical Iranian threat. It shows they remain desperate to conceal that their nuclear program is in fact a weapons program," he said. "I'm confident that these statements from Iran will not deter the sponsors of the draft resolution from proceeding in the Security Council."

Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also said the country might reconsider its membership in the NPT if pressure continues.

"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," Ahmadinejad said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

"If they (the U.S. and its allies) want to make incorrect decisions against Iran and issue statements and resolutions, they have to know that the Iranian nation will smash their illegitimate resolutions against a wall," he added.

The United States, France and Britain are sponsoring the U.N. resolution, which would allow sanctions — or military action, if necessary — to force Iran's compliance.

China and Russia, which both have veto power, contend that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons — as the U.S. and its allies believe — and they object to the call for possible "further measures" to ensure Tehran's compliance.

The foreign ministers of the six key players on the Iran nuclear issue — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — are meeting in New York Monday. Supporters of the resolution had hoped it would be adopted before that gathering.

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

An agreement with the Russian and Chinese is "our priority but we're not going to be held up indefinitely if we can't get them to agree," Bolton said.

Iran's parliament also threatened to ask the government to withdraw its signature of the Additional Protocol to the NPT that allows unannounced inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran already halted such inspections in January after being referred to the U.N. Security Council. Recently, however, it offered to allow them if the Security Council left the dispute to the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States rejected the offer.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi insisted Sunday that there was nothing the international community could do to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, declaring that "intervention by the Security Council in this issue is completely illegal."

"Intervention by the U.N. Security Council would change the path of cooperation to confrontation. We recommend they do not do this," Asefi said.