DUBAI, February 12. /TASS/. Some Iranian lawmakers are calling for the country to build nuclear weapons, said Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee.
"A few months before Donald Trump won the US presidential election, several experts said that Iran needed to build a nuclear bomb. In this context, several members of the Majles wrote to the Supreme National Security Council, and also a number of clergy and government members appealed to the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] to cancel the fatwa (religious ruling - TASS) banning the creation of nuclear weapons. I partly share the opinion of these people," the lawmaker told the Didban Iran news website.
As one reason in favor of the appeal, he cited former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as saying that Washington uses a more respectful tone toward North Korea because Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons.