Iran, Russia Discuss Closer Cooperation in OPCW

Dehqani and Ryazantsev met on the sidelines of the 24th Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday.

In the course of the meeting, the two sides discussed the agenda of the conference and stressed the need to boost the two countries’ cooperation in the OPCW.

They also talked about ways to prevent the weakening of the organization and to strengthen the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention by the members and its secretariat.

Addressing the conference on Monday, Dehqani had called for the immediate destruction of chemical weapons around the world and further supervision by the OPCW over the destruction process of US chemical weapons before the deadline that had been set earlier.

He further referred to the 32nd anniversary of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on Iranian civilians in Sardasht and said 22 years after the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force on April 29, 1997, international aid to victims of chemical attacks has been trivial.

The Iranian diplomat also descried US sanctions on Iran as shameful and called on the international community to counter the US sanctions which are in fact economic terrorism and a flagrant violation of the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons.

The US as the only state that possesses chemical weapons is a threat to international peace and security, he also stated.

Located in Iran's northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, Sardasht was the third city in the world after Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki to become a target of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

On June 28 and 29, 1987, Iraqi bombers attacked 4 crowded parts of Sardasht with chemical bombs and engulfed its residents, women, and children, young and old, with fatal chemical gases.

The attacks killed 116 citizens and injured over 5,000.