Iranian lawmaker Hosseinali Haji Deligani said on Saturday that building a nuclear bomb has become a public demand, just days before a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors to discuss Iran.
“Today, one of the people's demands is that Iran, in addition to its faith and missiles, must build and possess a nuclear bomb,” said Haji Deligani, the deputy head of the Article 90 Commission in the Iranian Parliament, according to Fars news agency.
He argued that Tehran should possess nuclear weapons regardless of whether it intends to use them.
“We must have this capability. Whether it is used or not is a separate matter,” the lawmaker noted.
He said, “based on current assessments, the enemy would not launch a nuclear attack on Iran because of the country’s vast size and the significant repercussions of such an attack.”
The Article 90 Commission of Iran's parliament is mandated to receive, investigate, and respond to written complaints regarding the performance of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Iran has made no official decision to change its nuclear doctrine despite growing calls from lawmakers and members of the public to reconsider its position if war resumes.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran had not suspended its obligations under its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Speaking to reporters, Baghaei said Iran remained a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and continued to uphold both the treaty and its safeguards agreement. He said the country had demonstrated its adherence to those commitments.
Grossi’s Report
Haji Deligani’s statements came one day after the UN’s nuclear watchdog said it cannot confirm that Tehran hasn’t diverted nuclear material away from peaceful purposes.
In a confidential report on Iran seen by media outlets on Friday, the UN’s nuclear watchdog said because of a lack of cooperation from Iran, it “is not able to conclude that there has been no diversion of declared nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities in Iran.”
IAEA said it is “increasingly concerned” about a uranium-enrichment plant at Isfahan that Iran declared to it last year but has still not let the watchdog inspect.”
“It is more than a year since the Agency lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the previously declared inventories of LEU (low-enriched uranium) and HEU (highly enriched uranium) enriched up to 60% U-235 at the declared nuclear facilities affected by the attacks of June 2025,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi wrote in his last report on Iran.
He added that Iran needs to allow inspectors back in “with the utmost urgency.”
Inspectors have yet to return to nuclear sites the United States and Israel bombed in June 2025.
Until those attacks, the IAEA estimates Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from the roughly 90% of weapons-grade uranium. That is enough material, if enriched further, for 10 nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick, and Iran also had material enriched to lower levels.
“The director general encourages Iran to consider technical and gradual measures by which conditions are achieved that allow for the return of agency inspectors to Iran,” the report said.
But Iran told the IAEA that discussions on restarting inspections in the country cannot resume amid “a series of persistent, explicit, and public threats by the President of the United States of America.”
Criticizing legal and technical basis of IAEA’s reports, Iran Mission to UN Office in Vienna said normal execution of safeguards cannot resume under the abnormal condition created by attacks on Iran’s safeguarded nuclear sites.
In a message posted on its X account on Saturday, the Iranian mission also criticized Grossi’s reporting, arguing that the Board’s decisions have been adopted through an abuse of process and that the US-Israeli attacks on Iran have disrupted inspections and forced the withdrawal of the IAEA’s inspectors.
“The United States removed aggression from bias resolutions, but its consequences cannot be erased from reality,” the statement added.
An Unavoidable Necessity
Last Thursday, Iran’s Assembly of Experts called for considering the country’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), alongside a review of Iran’s defense doctrine and the establishment of what it described as necessary deterrence.
In a statement carried by Iranian media, the Assembly said that reviewing withdrawal from the NPT, revising the country’s defense doctrine and establishing the necessary deterrence had become an “unavoidable necessity” and a “public and national demand.”
Two weeks ago, Mohsen Araki, a member of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Discernment Council, said Iran should reconsider its membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He also noted that the country had suffered setbacks without gaining comparable benefits.
“The Islamic Republic has suffered considerable harm and setbacks over the years because of its membership in and continued adherence to this treaty, while gaining no commensurate benefit from that membership,” said Araki.
