Iranian FM, Speaker Pessimistic about Endorsement of Possible N. Deal by US Congress

(FNA)- A senior member of the Iranian parliament revealed that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani do not see a big chance for a final nuclear deal to receive the approval of the US Congress.

"Both the foreign minister and parliament speaker didn’t have a positive view about the endorsement (of a possible nuclear agreement) by the (US) Congress and Senate," Javad Karimi Qoddousi, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told FNA on Sunday, explaining about the contents of a private meeting held between the parliament, the foreign minister and his deputies to study the latest developments in the nuclear talks underway between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany).

"Another issue discussed in today's private session was the Additional Protocol (to the Non-Proliferation Treaty), where the parliament speaker said that the legislature will certainly study the Additional Protocol with open eyes and the Additional Protocol cannot turn into a law without the parliament's permission," he added.

Karimi Qoddousi also referred to the parliament's bill to defend the country's nuclear rights, and said the bill will turn into a law in the next few weeks.

His remarks came after Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said early April that many lawmakers in the legislative body were strongly opposed to the endorsement of the Additional Protocol to the NPT by Iran, making its approval rather unlikely.

"There are opposing views at the parliament over accepting and implementing the Additional Protocol and the path is not leveled for its approval," Boroujerdi told reporters in Tehran last month.

Yet, he underlined that should there be a need to exercise the protocol in Iran, it will first need to receive the parliament's approval, and said, "If you remember, 10 years ago when the Iranian government implemented the Protocol voluntarily, the parliament announced that if Tehran's nuclear case were referred to the Security Council from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s Board of Governors, the legislature would require the government to stop its implementation, and it did."

Boroujerdi also warned that the parliament precisely monitors the developments following the nuclear agreement between Iran and the G5+1 and has ratified the urgency of a bill that would require the government to shift its path if the western side breaches its undertakings.

Also reports earlier this month said that the Iranian parliamentarians, in reaction to a US Senate's bill, were studying the double-urgency of a bill that would increase their supervision on any possible nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers.

"The US Senate's recent measure showed that the US is after a escape goat to shun implementing its undertakings under a possible nuclear deal," Rapporteur of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini said.

Referring to the Iranian parliamentarians' bill that would boost the legislature's supervision on a possible nuclear deal between Tehran and the G5+1, he said, "The bill has been compiled based on Articles 77 and 125 of the Constitution and will be studied at the parliament in the near future."

Naqavi Hosseini said that the Americans' past record showed that they had always pursued dual-track and deceptive policies, while they had not been a trustworthy partner during the nuclear talks with Iran either.

The parliament's decision was announced after the US Senate advanced a legislation that would allow the Congress to review a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran. The legislation was then endorsed by US President Barack Obama.