Iran defends post as chair of UN disarmament conference

TEHRAN,May 15(MNA) – Iran on Tuesday defended its election as the rotating chair of the world’s sole multilateral disarmament forum after the United States announced that its ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament would boycott any meeting led by Tehran, Reuters reported. The UN Conference on Disarmament has been deadlocked for about 15 years. While the chairmanship of the Geneva-based body is largely ceremonial, it is a high-profile position. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is a founding member of the United Nations,” said Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s UN mission. “Its election to the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament, as the most important disarmament negotiating body of the UN, is its right in accordance with the established practice and rules of procedure of this organ,” he said. Erin Pelton, spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said on Monday that the selection of Iran was “unfortunate and highly inappropriate.” She claimed that countries under UN sanctions for arms proliferation or human rights abuses should be barred from such formal or ceremonial UN posts. Iran is under sanctions by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and other international bodies over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but Western nations and their allies suspect may be aimed at giving it the capability to produce atomic weapons. Pelton said the U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Laura Kennedy, would boycott any meeting chaired by Iran. Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in 1980 after Iranian students took U.S. diplomats hostage in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. Rick Roth, spokesman for the Canadian Foreign Ministry, also condemned Iran’s election to the disarmament conference. Miryousefi denied that Iran was in violation of any of its treaty obligations. “Iran is a State Party to and in full compliance with all major treaties prohibiting the weapons of mass destruction negotiated within this body,” he said. Those treaties include the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological Weapons Convention, he said. “During its presidency, the Islamic Republic of Iran would focus on promoting the goals and objectives of the Conference on Disarmament through according the highest priority to nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of nuclear arsenals of the nuclear-weapon States in an irreversible, transparent and internationally verifiable manner,” Miryousefi said. Iran will chair the conference for four weeks beginning on May 27. The 65-nation Conference on Disarmament, created in 1978, negotiated biological and chemical weapons conventions but has been unable to carry out substantive work since 1998 because members could not agree on priorities.