Iranian MPs press for NPT exit as Assembly of Experts backs doctrine review

Iranian lawmakers are pressing for a formal withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a member of the country's parliament said on Friday, as the Assembly of Experts called for the Islamic Republic's defence doctrine to be reviewed.

Kamran Ghazanfari said building nuclear weapons is far more essential for Iran than countering what he called "US and Israeli propaganda against the Islamic Republic". He said Tehran must create deterrent power so that an adversary contemplating a nuclear attack would face a reciprocal response.

"In parliament we are also pursuing withdrawal from the NPT," Ghazanfari said, adding that some members of the presiding board blocked the move last year and that obstruction was still keeping it off the open floor. He said he inferred that a change of doctrine had in practice already happened.

On Thursday the Assembly of Experts, whose main task is oversight of the performance of the leadership, said examining withdrawal from the NPT and creating the necessary deterrence had become "an unavoidable necessity" and a public and national demand.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a former lawmaker, disagreed. He said nuclear deterrence requires an atomic bomb, a deterrent nuclear balance and the ability to deliver a final blow, and that he found it unlikely deterrence formed part of Iran's strategy. He said leaving the NPT would not serve Iran's national interests and that the Supreme National Security Council had not agreed to the MPs' triple-urgency bill.

Ghazanfari said Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, was referring to a "special weapon" when he said Iran "has certain things". Falahatpisheh said he doubted that reading.

Iran's Foreign Ministry stressed that the Islamic Republic remains committed to the NPT.

The debate is unfolding as the United States and Israel have designated Iran's capability to develop a nuclear weapon as the primary objective of their war on Iran.