The growing debate has exposed a divide within Iran’s political establishment between those who see NPT membership as offering little protection and others who warn that withdrawal would surrender one of Tehran’s remaining diplomatic and legal advantages.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, appeared to threaten withdrawal from the treaty on Sunday, saying that “political and destructive actions” by the International Atomic Energy Agency would “push countries toward leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
But President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated the same day, during a visit to India, that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons. “If we were seeking nuclear weapons, we would not have become a member of the NPT,” he said.
The debate intensified after Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, was prevented from attending the IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
Austria had sought an exemption from a UN travel ban to allow Eslami to attend, but the sanctions committee did not approve it after a US objection.
Calls for immediate withdrawal
Supporters of immediate withdrawal say NPT membership has failed to protect Iran from international pressure or attacks on its nuclear facilities.
Continued membership, they argue, only makes sense if members’ nuclear rights are given equal weight alongside their obligations.
Sepehr Khalaji, who headed the Government Information Council under former President Ebrahim Raisi, questioned why Iran remained in the treaty.
“They bombed the nuclear facilities, martyred the scientists, sanctioned nuclear technology and say they will strike the remaining nuclear facilities. They referred Iran’s case to the Security Council, and they do not allow the head of the Atomic Energy Organization to enter the IAEA. So why are we still in the IAEA? Why don’t we withdraw from the NPT?” he wrote on X.
Parliamentary push
The debate has also reached parliament, where lawmakers are preparing a proposal for Iran to withdraw from the NPT.
Hassan-Ali Akhlaghi, a member of parliament, told the Fars news agency on Wednesday that lawmakers had prepared a triple-urgency bill that would be put to a vote if approved by the parliamentary leadership.
Given what he called the IAEA’s “entirely hostile and illogical” resolution, Akhlaghi said Iran should leave the treaty as soon as possible.
The proposal, however, has not yet formally reached parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and is not currently on the parliamentary agenda.
Warnings of a trap
The conservative Khorasan newspaper on Wednesday warned that leaving the treaty could increase political and diplomatic pressure on Iran without producing significant security gains.
“On the surface, these positions may appear to be a revolutionary and deterrent response to the enemy; but when the pieces of the situation are put together, another worrying picture emerges,” it wrote.
Khorasan argued that the United States and Israel were deliberately trying to push Iran’s political debate toward more radical positions, including testing a nuclear weapon, changing its nuclear doctrine and immediately withdrawing from the NPT.
The newspaper said leaving the treaty before Iran had achieved deterrence could reveal Tehran’s intentions rather than demonstrate strength, potentially giving its opponents an opportunity to act.
“Iran has obtained an important part of the practical outcome without making an official and costly withdrawal: the IAEA no longer has its previous access, while Tehran continues to benefit from the legal protection of NPT membership and the political support of Russia and China,” Khorasan wrote.
“Official withdrawal would destroy this useful grey zone without creating a new strategic advantage.”
Reformist politician Rasoul Montajab-Nia made a similar argument.
“If the agency has not acted impartially toward Iran, we should not resort to disrupting the framework, because this would mean fuelling disputes and war with other countries.”
Montajab-Nia said withdrawal would not benefit Iran and would be “in line with Israel’s objectives.”
The nuclear threshold
At the outer edge of the debate, some advocates of developing nuclear weapons have argued that Iran should remain in the NPT unless it decides to change its nuclear doctrine — and then coordinate withdrawal with a nuclear test.
Foad Izadi, a hardline political commentator, told the Moj news agency that Iran had no need to leave the NPT while its current nuclear doctrine remained in place.
But if Tehran decided to change that doctrine, he said, Iran could withdraw from the treaty after a nuclear test or simultaneously with one.
