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MP confident about final approval of bill on cutting ties with Britain

Iran Materials 5 January 2011 23:35 (UTC +04:00)
The Iranian parliament will definitely approve the bill of the law on cutting ties with Britain, a senior Iranian lawmaker reiterated on Wednesday.
MP confident about final approval of bill on cutting ties with Britain

The Iranian parliament will definitely approve the bill of the law on cutting ties with Britain, a senior Iranian lawmaker reiterated on Wednesday.
 
"Deputies of the nation are angry at the British approach (towards Iran) and the bill is going to be approved at the parliament," Rapporteur of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Kazzem Jalali told FNA on Wednesday.

Asked if his commission's ratification would be enough for requiring the government to cut Tehran's ties with London, Jalali said the bill should first be put to vote, which, he said, would be carried out once the necessary discussions and studies are done by the MPs.

"We first need the bill to be approved as a law, and to do this we should put it to vote," he said, reminding that nothing is binding on the government until it is approved as a law.

The bill has already received the approval of the National Security and Foreign Policy commission. Late in December, the commission submitted the bill to the parliament's presiding board for a final discussion and approval by all parliament members.

Later, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani underlined that the country's legislative body would seriously pursue ratification of the bill to reciprocate Britain's inimical approach towards Iran in recent years.

The move by the commission came days after British Envoy to Tehran Simon Gass criticized the human rights situation in Iran.

Iran protested at the British envoy's meddlesome measures, but London voiced all-out support for Gass and the British Queen gave Gass a knighthood for his services to Britain.

The Iranian lawmakers initially started drafting a bill to downgrade ties with London after Britain's direct involvement in stirring post-election unrests in Iran in 2009, but they intensified and accelerated the move after British Envoy to Tehran Simon Gass criticized the human rights situation in Iran, and said, "Today, International Human Rights Day is highlighting the cases of those people around the world who stand up for the rights of others - the lawyers, journalists and NGO workers who place themselves at risk to defend their countrymen."

"Nowhere are they under greater threat than in Iran. Since last year human rights defenders have been harassed and imprisoned," Gass said in a memo published by the British Embassy in Tehran on December 9.

Other lawmakers, including head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, had previously blasted the negative role of the British ambassador to Tehran, and asked the country's foreign ministry to expel him from Iran.

 

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