TEHRAN – Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Alaeddin Borujerdi said here on Tuesday that Iran’s recent decision to resume nuclear research under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is based on international law.

Iran’s nuclear activities are all within the framework of international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted him as saying.

Borujerdi stated that the European Union and the United States seek to exert pressure on Iran in order to impose their will on the country.

According to international law, Iran’s nuclear dossier should not be referred to the UN Security Council, he stressed.

The MP said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s recent remarks in an interview with Newsweek are contrary to his previous statements about Iran in November 2004, when he had praised the country for its compliance with IAEA regulations.

These remarks were also a diversion from the IAEA’s legal mandate, he maintained, adding that ElBaradei should make technical statements in line with the IAEA mandate rather than political statements.

Borujerdi noted that Iran follows a policy of extensive and close cooperation with the IAEA and expressed hope that ElBaradei would take the continued cooperation between the two sides into consideration in his future pronouncements about Iran and would maintain the IAEA’s impartiality.

He also said that Iran has not rejected Moscow’s proposal to enrich Iran’s uranium in Russia.

He explained that the Russian proposal could be studied and expressed hope that a mutual agreement would be reached to conduct joint enrichment on both Iranian and Russian soil.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Borujerdi said that Iran’s defense budget has declined over the past few years and needs to be raised. He added that the defense budget is neither at the same level that regional states are spending nor in line with the Islamic Republic’s defense strategy.

The MP noted that the government has allocated 194 trillion rials (about $21.3 billion) for the construction of two new nuclear power plants in Iran since the Majlis ratified a bill obliging the government to produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has also announced an international tender for the construction of two nuclear power plants, he added.

Commenting on the meeting of Russian, Chinese, U.S., British, French, and German officials in London on Monday, Borujerdi said that the countries had not reached an agreement on Iran.