Iran’s Parliament Urges Bill on Additional Protocol Implementation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior Iranian lawmaker said the temporary application of the Additional Protocol (AP) to the IAEA’s Safeguards Agreement is currently underway under certain restrictions and its permanent implementation will need parliament’s approval.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi told ICANA on Saturday that Iran is currently voluntarily implementing the AP on a temporary basis.
“Since the move was against the previous laws, the parliament legalized the temporary implementation by passing (the details of) a motion,” he noted, adding, however, that permanent implementation should be approved by the legislature.
“The government should submit a bill to the parliament so that it would decide on the permanent application of the Additional Protocol,” Boroujerdi stressed.
He also noted that the AP is now applied under certain restrictions, of which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been informed.
“Iran has always declared that visits to the country’s nuclear sites should be made in conventional ways or else should be permitted by the Supreme National Security Council,” he added.
Iran had notified the IAEA that it will provisionally apply the Additional Protocol once the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the text of a recent nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, begins.
“On 18 October 2015, the Director General of the IAEA was informed by the Islamic Republic of Iran that, effective on Implementation Day of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran will provisionally apply the Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, pending its ratification by the Majlis (Parliament), and will fully implement the modified code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements to its Safeguards Agreement,” the IAEA announced in a statement in October.
The notification by Iran came on the so-called “adoption day” for the nuclear deal, which came 90 days after Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA, the comprehensive 159-page deal on Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
The agreement would terminate all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran after coming into force.
