UNITED NATIONS: Iran yesterday 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.
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 US mission to the UN, said on Monday that the selection of Iran was “unfortunate and highly inappropriate.” She said 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 UN, the US, the European Union and other international bodies for refusing to halt a nuclear enrichment program that Tehran says is peaceful but Western nations and their allies suspect is aimed at giving it the capability to produce atomic weapons.
The US and Europe have also accused Iran of violating a UN embargo on Iranian arms exports in order to supply weapons to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. They say Tehran is support Assad’s efforts to defeat rebels seeking to overthrow him in the country’s two-year civil war.
Pelton said the US 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 US diplomats hostage in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution.
Reuters
