Iran’s Supreme Leader said yesterday he favoured a parliamentary vote on its nuclear deal reached with world powers and called for sanctions against Tehran to be lifted completely rather than suspended, state TV reported.

President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist whose 2013 election paved the way to a diplomatic thaw with the West, and his allies have opposed such a parliamentary vote, arguing this would create legal obligations complicating the deal’s implementation.

“Parliament should not be sidelined on the nuclear deal issue... I am not saying lawmakers should ratify or reject the deal. It is up to them to decide,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state policy in Iran.

“I have told the President that it is not in our interest to not let our lawmakers review the deal,” the top Shi’ite Muslim cleric said. The landmark pact, clinched on July 14 between Iran and the US, Germany, France, Russia, China and Britain, would limit Iran’s nuclear programme to ensure it is not put to making bombs in exchange for a removal of economic sanctions.

Khamenei himself has not publicly endorsed or voiced opposition to the Vienna accord, although he has praised the work of the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team.

A special committee of Parliament, where conservative hardliners close to Khamenei are predominant, have begun reviewing the deal before putting it to a vote. But Rouhani’s government has not prepared a Bill for Parliament to vote on.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s Parliament speaker, told reporters in New York yesterday that Iranian lawmakers would likely debate the accord more heatedly than in the US Congress, where Republicans have sought to kill the deal. Larijani, an ex-chief nuclear negotiator, said he considered the accord good but some stiff opposition remained in Parliament, including over a so-called ‘snapback’ clause under which UN sanctions can be reinstated in the event of alleged violations of the terms of the settlement. Khamenei said that without a cancellation of sanctions that have hobbled Iran’s economy, the deal would be jeopardised.

Parliament should not be sidelined on the nuclear issue

“Should the sanctions be suspended, then there would be no deal either. So this issue must be resolved. If they only suspend the sanctions, then we will only suspend our nuclear activities,” he said. Iran and the Western powers have appeared to differ since the accord was struck on precisely how and when sanctions are to be dismantled.

“Then we could go on and triple the number of centrifuges to 60,000, keep a 20 per cent level of uranium enrichment and also accelerate our research and development activities,” the Supreme Leader added. The Vienna agreement places strict curbs on all three sensitive elements of Iran’s nuclear programme, seen as crucial to creating confidence that Tehran will not covertly seek to develop atomic bombs from enriched uranium.

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