Iran's NPT withdrawal debate intensifies as Kremlin warns against it
Russian officials distance themselves from Iranian nuclear treaty exit talk as Iranian MPs and former officials call for withdrawal, Rezaei links IAEA politicization to NPT departure, and Pezeshkian insists Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The Kremlin stated on Tuesday that it has no desire to see Iran withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that Tehran's statements on the matter require further clarification, as debate inside Iran over a potential NPT exit has intensified significantly over the past weeks, with senior officials and parliamentarians calling for withdrawal while President Pezeshkian continues to insist Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons.
"We have no desire for Iran to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Tehran's statements in this regard require further clarifications," the Kremlin said in its statement, making Russia the most significant international actor yet to publicly push back against the Iranian NPT withdrawal discussion.
The Debate Inside Iran
The discussion about Iran withdrawing from the NPT has grown more serious in recent weeks. A group of current and former Iranian officials, including several members of parliament, issued a statement on September 28, 2026, calling for Iran to halt cooperation within the NPT framework and begin the process of withdrawal from the treaty.
On September 10, 2026, Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said that the IAEA's political and destructive actions could push countries toward withdrawing from the NPT. His remarks came one day after the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution referring Iran's non-compliance with its safeguards obligations to the UN Security Council, in the US and European-backed resolution that Iran's Foreign Ministry had described as politically motivated and based on a politicized director general's report.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has continued to assert that Iran is not seeking to build nuclear weapons. He has previously said that if Iran had such a goal it would not have joined the NPT in the first place.
The IAEA's Verification Gap
The IAEA has said that due to restrictions on its access to certain Iranian facilities and nuclear materials, it cannot fully confirm the non-diversion of Iran's nuclear materials, leaving a verification gap at the center of the nuclear file that has become one of the primary obstacles to any final settlement between Washington and Tehran. The US official who told Al Jazeera and Axios journalist Barak Ravid on Monday that any deal must address the nuclear issue and that Washington needs guarantees Iran is serious was speaking directly to this gap.
The Diplomatic Context
The NPT withdrawal debate is unfolding simultaneously with indirect US-Iran negotiations through Qatari and Pakistani mediators that include the nuclear file as a non-negotiable American condition for any agreement. Tehran's most recent proposal, as detailed by Araghchi at the UNGA, includes a commitment to restart nuclear talks on day seven of the sequenced Hormuz reopening plan. Iranian President Pezeshkian confirmed to CBS News that Iran would allow UN nuclear inspectors if an agreement framework is established.
The Kremlin's intervention against the NPT withdrawal discussion is significant. Russia has been one of Iran's most important diplomatic and economic partners throughout the conflict, refusing Washington's requests to pressure Tehran on Hormuz, maintaining banking relationships with sanctioned Iranian institutions as documented by the Treasury's VTB Bank designation, and consistently calling for a diplomatic resolution. Moscow's statement that it has no desire to see Iran leave the NPT signals that even Iran's closest major power partner regards a formal treaty withdrawal as a step too far, likely because it would foreclose the diplomatic track entirely and potentially trigger a military escalation that Russia has no interest in managing.