Iran’s supreme leader pushes vote on nuclear agreement

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Thursday urged its Parliament to hold a vote on the international nuclear accord, a day after Democrats in Congress ensured the U.S. would not back out of the agreement.

“Parliament should not be sidelined on the nuclear deal issue,” Khamenei said in live remarks on state television, according to Reuters. 

“I am not saying lawmakers should ratify or reject the deal,” he added. “It is up to them to decide.”

{mosads}The comments could lead to trouble for advocates of the agreement, even though the Iranian Parliament would be expected to endorse it.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has opposed such a vote, which he has claimed would impose new legal hurdles for the deal. Parliamentary debate might also allow for increasingly fiery rhetoric from extremely conservative lawmakers in Iran, which would stoke global ire and stir anxieties in the U.S.

Khamenei is the top cleric in Shiite Iran and is given ultimate say over all of the country’s policies.

His comments point to the complex domestic political dynamics surrounding the deal in Iran.

In additional remarks posted on Twitter, Khamenei also warned about the possibility of merely suspending sanctions under the agreement, as opposed to removing them entirely.

If sanctions are not removed, then there will be no deal either; so it must be decided. We urged removal, not suspension, of sanctions.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) September 3, 2015

We asserted sanctions must be removed, not suspended. In case of suspension, our actions will respectively be suspension, not fundamental.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) September 3, 2015

U.S. lawmakers are planning to renew sanctions on Iran later this year, which the Obama administration has warned could cause trouble for the deal. 

The remarks came a day after Democratic Senate supporters of the deal assured that critics of the agreement would not be able to rally the two-thirds necessary to override Obama’s expected veto of legislation aiming to kill it, and shortly before two more Senate Democrats announced they would also back the pact.   

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to comment on Khamenei’s remarks.

“I had seen those remarks,” he said. “We don’t generally respond to public comments by Iran’s supreme leader.”