A bill requiring Iran's government to increase uranium enrichment closer to the level needed for a nuclear weapon cleared its first hurdle in Parliament on Tuesday.
The proposed law could also deport UN inspectors from the country.
Inspections by international monitors would be restricted if US oil and banking sanctions were not lifted within three months of the bill’s approval.
The proposal still requires final approval by Parliament and the Guardian Council that vets laws.
But the government said the move, proposed in response to the assassination of a top nuclear scientist on Friday, could not change Iran's nuclear policy, which falls under authority of the Supreme National Security Council.
"Death to America. Death to Israel," some legislators chanted after the hardline-dominated Parliament cleared the draft at its first reading in a session broadcast live on state radio.
Parliament has often demanded a hardening of Iran's position on the nuclear issue in recent years, without much success.
The government must now decide whether a sharp response to Friday's killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh might jeopardise the chance of an improvement in ties with the US when Joe Biden takes over from Donald Trump as president.
"The government believes that, under the constitution, the nuclear accord and the nuclear programme are under the jurisdiction of the Supreme National Security Council," government spokesman Ali Rabiei told state media.
"Parliament cannot deal with this by itself."
The draft legislation would also revive the core of a contentious nuclear reactor and enrich Iran’s stockpile of uranium to 20 per cent, which could then be purified to weapons grade at short notice.
That reactor could be brought online within two months, state-run Irib News quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, as saying on Tuesday.
The maximum fissile purity to which Iran has enriched uranium has remained around 4.5 per cent, above the 3.67 per cent cap agreed to in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers but below the 20 per cent Iran had achieved before.
A senior Iranian official said on Monday that Tehran suspected a foreign-based opposition group of complicity with Israel in the killing of Fakhrizadeh, who western powers regard as the architect of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. The group rejected the accusation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has declined to comment on the killing.
Israeli Cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Saturday that he did not know who had carried it out.
Mr Biden has said he will return the US to the 2015 nuclear deal if Iran resumed compliance.
Tehran has always denied pursuing nuclear weapons.
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final, second leg (first-leg score):
Manchester City (0) v Tottenham Hotspur (1), Wednesday, 11pm UAE
Match is on BeIN Sports
Race card
6.30pm: Handicap (TB) $68,000 (Dirt) 1,200m
7.05pm: Meydan Cup – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (Turf) 2,810m
7.40pm: UAE 2000 Guineas – Group 3 (TB) $125,000 (D) 1,600m
8.15pm: Firebreak Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $130,000 (D) 1,600m
9.50pm: Meydan Classic – Conditions (TB) $$50,000 (T) 1,400m
9.25pm: Dubai Sprint – Listed Handicap (TB) $88,000 (T) 1,200m
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
'Laal Kaptaan'
Director: Navdeep Singh
Stars: Saif Ali Khan, Manav Vij, Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain
Rating: 2/5
The specs
Engine: 8.0-litre, quad-turbo 16-cylinder
Transmission: 7-speed auto
0-100kmh 2.3 seconds
0-200kmh 5.5 seconds
0-300kmh 11.6 seconds
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Price: Dh13,400,000
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Terminator: Dark Fate
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis
Rating: 3/5
THE%20SPECS
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FIGHT CARD
Bantamweight Hamza Bougamza (MAR) v Jalal Al Daaja (JOR)
Catchweight 67kg Mohamed El Mesbahi (MAR) v Fouad Mesdari (ALG)
Lighweight Abdullah Mohammed Ali (UAE) v Abdelhak Amhidra (MAR)
Catchweight 73kg Mostafa Ibrahim Radi (PAL) v Yazid Chouchane (ALG)
Middleweight Yousri Belgaroui (TUN) v Badreddine Diani (MAR)
Catchweight 78kg Rashed Dawood (UAE) v Adnan Bushashy (ALG)
Middleweight Sallaheddine Dekhissi (MAR) v Abdel Emam (EGY)
Catchweight 65kg Rachid Hazoume (MAR) v Yanis Ghemmouri (ALG)
Lighweight Mohammed Yahya (UAE) v Azouz Anwar (EGY)
Catchweight 79kg Omar Hussein (PAL) v Souhil Tahiri (ALG)
Middleweight Tarek Suleiman (SYR) v Laid Zerhouni (ALG)
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
