MP Malek Shariati uploaded the NPT withdrawal bill to the Islamic Consultative Assembly's parliamentary portal on 28 March, tagged as 'priority legislation.'1 National security commission spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei stated the treaty 'has had no benefit for us.' The bill would simultaneously revoke all JCPOA restrictions and propose a replacement nuclear treaty with SCO and BRICS member states.
Strikes hit the yellowcake facility at Yazd and the Khondab Heavy Water Complex near Arak. The IAEA has not verified 440 kg of 60%-enriched uranium for eight months. If the NPT did not prevent those strikes and cannot enforce its own verification framework, the incentive to remain evaporates.
The Majlis has not held formal sessions since 28 February. A vote is not imminent. But that may be the point: the bill exists as a loaded instrument that can be advanced the moment parliament reconvenes. The deterrence value comes from its existence, not its passage. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and tested its first nuclear weapon three years later. No mechanism existed to restore oversight. Iran has studied that precedent carefully.
A counter-argument: filing a bill is cheap signalling; Iran has threatened NPT withdrawal before without acting. That reading underestimates the changed context. The IAEA's incident centre is activated to monitor repeated strikes on an operating nuclear reactor. The monitoring body designed to prevent a radiological catastrophe may lose its legal standing to act before the strikes stop. This is the nuclear safety paradox of Day 31: the institution is being targeted from above by projectiles and undermined from below by legislation.
