Iran’s Larijani: Parliament Not to Interfere in Nuclear Talks
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday that the parliament will not directly involve in the negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear energy program, but will provide the country's negotiators with necessary assistance.
Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, MP Safar Naeimi Raz, the spokesman of Followers of Velayat, a parliamentary faction, said that Larijani participated in a Sunday meeting of the faction during which the ongoing talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) have been discussed.
“During the meeting, Larijani said that the parliament has not been and will not be directly involved in the issue of nuclear talks and if it has a plan (on the issue), it will put forward,” Naeimi Raz said.
Larijani also emphasized that the nuclear talks are up to the negotiating team, according to the Iranian lawmaker.
Earlier in a press conference in Tehran on Saturday, Larijani had said that Iran’s parliament has devised retaliatory plans should the US imposes fresh sanctions on the country over its peaceful nuclear program.
The legislature has “seriously considered scenarios” to make the US regret if the Congress decides to slap new sanctions on Iran, Larijani said.
Larijani made it clear that Iran has already shown the necessary flexibilities in the course of nuclear talks with six world powers, noting that US President Barack Obama’s struggle with the Congress is his own problem and Iran does not have to pay the price for the political infighting in the US.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are in talks to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is the country's chief nuclear negotiator, had warned that if the US Congress imposes fresh sanctions on Tehran, the Iranian parliament will retaliate by adopting a bill to further expand the country's nuclear enrichment level.
The parliament “will adopt something requiring the government... to increase our (uranium) enrichment," Zarif told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss city of Davos.
