Iran’s lawmakers pass bill to boost nuclear activity in wake of physicist assassination

Tehran [Iran], November 30  The Iranian parliament has passed a bill, dubbed “The strategic measure for the removal of sanctions,” aimed at revitalizing the country’s nuclear activities in the wake of the assassination of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, parliamentary committee spokesman Abolfazl Amouei has announced.
The scientist, who also was the head of the Iranian Defense Ministry’s innovation center, died as a result of a gunmen attack on Friday in the town of Absard in the Tehran region.
Iran’s Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee discussed the “strategic measure for the removal of sanctions” bill on Sunday, approving three of its articles.
“Discussing articles of the Strategic Action Plan for the lifting of sanctions was on the agenda. In today’s meeting, three articles of this plan were reviewed and the opinions of the representatives were obtained and amendments were made to the clauses. Representatives from the Foreign Ministry, the Central Bank, and the Parliamentary Research Center also attended the meeting,” committee spokesman Abolfazl Amouei told the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency (ICANA), as quoted by Tehran Times.
According to Amouei, the three articles that were discussed include measures that, if adopted, would significantly increase Iran’s nuclear activities.
The bill envisages increasing the uranium enrichment level to 20 percent or more — such uranium is considered a weapon-grade one. At the moment, Iran is enriching uranium at more than 4 percent, while the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) capped the level at 3.67 percent.
The bill also involves the restoration of the Arak nuclear reactor, which was set to be redesigned for the production of radioisotopes so that it does not produce weapon-grade plutonium under the JCPOA, and the construction of another reactor. Another provision of the bill obliges Tehran to abandon voluntary compliance with the Additional Protocol to the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
According to the Iranian news agency, lawmakers assigned a double-urgency status to the bill and ratified it in a 232-14 vote at the Sunday session.