More than 50 Iranian MPs are backing a bill that would require US nationals to be fingerprinted and body-searched upon arrival in Iran, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The deputies are supporting the legislation "to treat Americans travelling to this country just like the US government has been treating Iranians there," said Iran Daily, published by the state news agency IRNA.
But other deputies are denouncing the bill, which is to be presented to parliament next week, as a threat to badly needed foreign investment and a blot on Iran's efforts to improve its image in the West.
"Since our country is in dire need of foreign investment and using foreign experts to push forward development, the bill would have repercussions on our economic situation," Jassem Shahid-Zadeh told the paper.
But conservative MP Mohammad Mehdi Shahrokhi said the bill was fair game after the treatment of Iranians arriving in the United States, who have occasionally been subjected to fingerprinting and extensive interrogation.
"The American Congress has been using all in its capacity to adopt anti-Iran policies," he said, referring to new US legislation which aims to use Iranian assets frozen by the United States to pay reparations for 1980s victims of what Washington calls Iran-sponsored terrorism – TEHRAN (AFP)
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