Parliament and Supreme National Security Council, Tehran’s top decision-making body, to consider agreement in coming days

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, second right, gives a speech while Chief of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, second left, listens during an annual military parade marking the 34th anniversary of outset of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, in front of the mausoleum of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini just outside Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, second right, gives a speech while Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, second left, listens during an annual military parade marking the 34th anniversary of outset of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, in front of the mausoleum of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini just outside Tehran, Iran, Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

 

Iran’s official news agency is reporting that the Islamic Republic’s military chief has backed a nuclear deal with world powers despite “concerns.”

Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, a close ally of Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered 16 advantages of the deal, a major endorsement that may push conservatives to join moderates in supporting the agreement despite growing opposition from hard-liners. The official IRNA news agency reported his comments Saturday.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has not publicly approved or disapproved the deal. However, he repeatedly has offered words of support for his country’s nuclear negotiators.

Iran’s parliament and the Supreme National Security Council, the country’s highest security body, are to consider the agreement in the coming days.

Meanwhile the country is apparently preparing for the day after the deal is signed. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Saturday that Tehran is fixing up roads near the Parchin military site, dismissing reports that it is engaged in a hurried clean-up of a facility where it is alleged to have carried out illegal nuclear-related activity.

“We have announced that road construction operations are being carried out at Parchin,” Zarif told reporters in Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. Claims to the contrary were “lies,” he said. “All allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran in this ground have always been baseless,” Zarif added.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif delivers a speech during a press conference in Kuwait City on July 26, 2015 (Yasser al-Zayyat/AFP)
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif delivers a speech during a press conference in Kuwait City on July 26, 2015 (Yasser al-Zayyat/AFP)

The IRNA report on the military commander’s support of the deal comes as a heated debate takes place in the US regarding the agreement.

While Republicans have pledged to oppose the deal and President Barack Obama pledged to use his presidential veto to overcome any Congressional attempt to squash it, the pressure is now on Democratic lawmakers whose votes are needed to overrule the presidential veto.

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermontdeclared his support for the deal on Friday, in an announcement that followed a call from Obama.

“I had some questions that I addressed to the president, and he responded,” Sanders told The New York Times. “The answers that he gave me helped me reach the final conclusion.”

Sanders’s endorsement came hours after Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the leading Jewish Democrat in the Senate, announced his opposition to the agreement reached between world powers and Tehran last month.

Rep. Eliot Engel, the most senior Democrat on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, announced on Thursday he would oppose the accord.

“The answers I’ve received simply don’t convince me that this deal will keep a nuclear weapon out of Iran’s hands, and may in fact strengthen Iran’s position as a destabilizing and destructive influence across the Middle East,” Engel said, according to Reuters.

The deal curbs Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

As reported by The Times of Israel