Senior Iranian official Alaeddin Boroujerdi is demanding the "immediate" lifting of sanctions ahead of the November 24 deadline for an agreement over Tehran's nuclear program. Photo: Twitter

A leading advocacy group working to counter Iran’s nuclear program has urged the Obama Administration to press for “full transparency” on the Tehran regime’s nuclear installations ahead of any discussions about the lifting of sanctions.

United Against Nuclear Iran, a New York-based lobby group whose leadership includes Mark Wallace, a former American Ambassador to the United Nations, and Dr. Gary Samore, the former White House Coordinator for Arms Control, was reacting to a statement from the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi , who said that a US proposal for the gradual lifting of sanctions was “unacceptable.”

“If we want a definitive accord on November 24, there must be an immediate lifting of sanctions,” Bouroujerdi told a news conference in Paris. November 24 is the deadline  set by the international community for a final deal. Throughout the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany,) there had been concern that the Iranian leadership will raise new, radical demands, such as the “immediate” lifting of sanctions, ahead of the deadline.

“Ever since this agreement was passed last November, the P5+1 has eased sanctions on Iran,” Gabriel Pedreira, the spokesman for UANI, told The Algemeiner. “But what has the Iranian regime done in return? It’s continued to support terrorism, continued to back the Assad regime in Syria, presided over a disastrous human rights situation inside the country, while allowing its centrifuges to continue spinning. There is nothing to indicate that they are serious about dismantling their nuclear program.”

Pedreira continued: “There needs to be full transparency before we can examine the lifting of sanctions. The Obama Administration passed these latest sanctions in 2012 for a reason: Iran’s clandestine nuclear program.”