DOHA, June 15. /TASS/. Ebrahim Rezai, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Mejlis (unicameral Parliament) of Iran, called on the republic’s government to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

"Now is the time to withdraw from the NPT," the Iranian Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

"This agreement was supposed to ensure our security, and not become the reason for its absence," Rezai said, without specifying whether the Mejlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy had prepared any official document on the issue.

Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on the night of June 13, targeting Iran's nuclear program. Less than a day later, the Islamic Republic launched a retaliatory attack. On June 14 and on the night of June 15, Israel and Iran exchanged strikes again. Both sides reported deaths and injuries as a result of the attacks, acknowledged that a number of objects on their territory were hit, but stated that the damage was limited.

Iran began developing its nuclear program in the 1950s during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with the support of the United States. In 1958, the country became a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in 1968, Tehran signed the NPT, which was ratified in 1970. After the shah was ousted in 1979 and the Islamic Republic was proclaimed, the nuclear program was halted until the government resumed the development of nuclear technology in the late 1980s.