Iranian MPs debate nuclear bill

09/28/2005

The Scotsman News
September 28, 2005

Iran’s hard-line dominated parliament began debating a bill to force the government to scale back co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

The parliament agreed to urgently debate the bill, putting pressure on the government to retaliate to a European-drafted resolution that put Iran on the verge of referral to the UN Security Council unless Tehran eases suspicions about its nuclear activities.

If approved, the bill - the latest in a series of threats and measures Iran has made - will oblige the government to suspend the implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

It grants UN nuclear experts unfettered inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities at short notice.

“The parliament intends to block the misuse of the Additional Protocol,” Speaker Golam Ali Haddad Adel said ahead of the parliament session.

Also, hundreds of Iranian students gathered outside the British Embassy in Tehran to protest the role of Britain in proposing the resolution. Demonstrators pelted the building with stones, fire crackers, eggs and tomatoes and burned the US and British flags. Anti-riot police blocked the students from entering the embassy grounds, using tear gas and batons to drive them back.

At least three students were injured.

“The British ambassador should be expelled,” the students chanted, demanding that the embassy be closed.

“We do not allow British spies to continue their activities in the embassy anymore,” a statement issued by the students said.

“The espionage house (embassy) should be taken over,” a banner carried by students read.