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The legislation was proposed in the legislature dominated by hardliners following the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist on November 27, which Tehran has blamed on Israel. The bill still has to be approved in a second reading and receive an endorsement from a clerical body before it can be entered into the law books. The vote was covered live on state radio.
The construction of a nuclear bomb requires uranium fissle purity of 90%. Iran has lately gradually moved its enrichment up to around 4.5%. That is above the nuclear deal’s 3.67% cap but below the 20% Iran has achieved before. The breach is one of several made by Iran in protest at the US withdrawal in 2018 from the nuclear accord that protected its economy from major sanctions and the failure of Europe to take meaningful action to defend the Iranian economy from sanctions introduced by US President Donald Trump after he unilaterally pulled Washington out of the agreement.
Iranian centrist politicians that would like to see Iran enter into discussions with Joe Biden—the US president-elect who will commence his presidential administration on January 20—to resurrect US participation in the nuclear deal, which would remove the Trump sanctions crushing the Iranian economy, face a battle with hardliners who say Washington should not be trusted again to sign up to and stick with the accord.
On December 1, the Guardian reported some of Europe’s leading diplomats as saying that France, Germany and the UK must move quickly to set out a roadmap for Iran and the incoming Biden administration to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal.
They reportedly warned that unless the three countries, known as the E3, coordinated a joint public statement setting out what both sides must do to end the impasse, there was a real risk that Biden would come to power facing only escalating tensions with Iran.
The statement was said to underline the urgency felt in parts of Europe that the momentum towards potential reconciliation, signalled by Biden’s election, risks being disrupted by those determined to ensure that the US and Iran cannot get back to the negotiating table, and instead end up in a dangerous round of escalation. That fear grew with the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The remaining signatories to the nuclear deal—France, Germany, the UK, Russia, Iran and China—are to meet at joint commission level in Vienna on December 16 to discuss how to keep the deal alive.
2.4 Iranian prosecutors pledge to pursue Trump for Soleimani killing even after he leaves White House
State prosecutors in Iran have placed Donald Trump at the top of a list of 36 individuals identified in relation to the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, and have pledged to pursue the US president even after his term in office ends in January, the Tehran Times r eported on November 27.
The report came on the same day that a hit squad—which top Iranian officials
7 IRAN Country Report December 2020 www.intellinews.com
