Iran's Parliament Confirms It Is Reviewing a Fast-Track Bill to Quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Since the IAEA Board of Governors voted 23-3 on September 8 to refer Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council, with only Russia, China and Niger opposed and eight abstentions, hardliners in Iran's parliament have pushed harder for a full withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On Monday, First Deputy Speaker Ali Nikzad told Fars News Agency that a three-point, "triple-urgency" bill to pull Iran out of the treaty is now under formal review, according to ZeroHedge and The Liberty Daily, both of which republished the Fars account.

Triple urgency is the fastest legislative track available in Iran's parliament. It lets lawmakers skip normal procedural queues and potentially vote the same day a bill is introduced, according to ABAB News. Nikzad said lawmakers "do not trust" the International Atomic Energy Agency or its director general, Rafael Grossi, accusing the agency of superficial inspections and biased reporting.

About 130 members of parliament co-signed a request on September 15 asking the presiding board to start the legal process for withdrawal and to expand nuclear cooperation with what they called "ideologically similar countries," according to ABAB News. By September 20, lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji Deligani said the bill had already been submitted to the presiding board and was ready for an open session, pending approval from Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a detail confirmed independently by Mehr News Agency.

Deligani told parliament that "remaining in the NPT brings us nothing but losses" and argued the Security Council referral removed any remaining incentive to stay, according to Mehr News Agency. Ebrahim Azizi, a senior MP, went further, telling Mehr that the IAEA "no longer fulfills the role of a technical and professional organization" and has become an instrument of political pressure.

But the numbers may not be there. A member of parliament's National Security Committee told Iran International the triple-urgency measure could secure no more than 70 votes, short of what's needed. Mohammad Mehdi Shahriari told the outlet Jamaran that leaving the NPT during wartime would effectively signal a pursuit of nuclear weapons, something he said Iran does not intend to do, and that withdrawal would only raise costs and escalate the crisis further.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said Iran's nuclear doctrine "had not changed" but confirmed withdrawal remains on the table, telling Al Jazeera it "depends on America's conduct," according to Iran International. President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking in India, pushed back directly: "If we were seeking nuclear weapons, we would not have become a member of the NPT."

Iran's underlying grievance, echoed across its state and parliamentary statements, is that Israel possesses nuclear weapons and has never signed the NPT, while Iran, a signatory since 1970, faces sanctions and military strikes over a program it insists is peaceful. ZeroHedge and The Liberty Daily both noted that officially recognizing Israel as a nuclear power would carry its own legal complications for U.S. foreign aid, which is why Washington has avoided the question for decades. Iran's argument, whatever one makes of its enrichment record, points to a real and long-standing asymmetry in how the nonproliferation regime treats its members.

Only one country has ever completed a formal NPT withdrawal: North Korea, which submitted its Article 10 notice in 2003, according to ABAB News. Iran has floated withdrawal twice in 2026, including an earlier March proposal from MP Malek Shariati that also called for scrapping domestic laws tied to the 2015 nuclear deal and pivoting toward the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. Neither prior proposal has reached a floor vote, and inspection access under the IAEA has been largely suspended since April 2026.

The threat lands as U.S. domestic politics on the broader Iran war shift. The Senate voted 49-50 on Thursday to defeat a Democrat-forced resolution to end U.S. hostilities with Iran, with Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis crossing over, according to NPR. Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the vote "political" but conceded many in his own party want the war over, NPR reported, as diesel prices sit above $6.50 a gallon.

The open question is procedural but consequential: whether Speaker Ghalibaf schedules the bill for a floor vote at all, and if he does, whether the roughly 70 votes cited by Iran International's parliamentary source hold up or grow once the bill reaches an open session.