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Iran Weighs Possibility of Chemical Weapons Charges Against European Countries
Iran would raise the issue of European support for Iraq’s chemical weapons programs during the Iran-Iraq war in an international tribunal if Europe increases pressure on Iran over its nuclear activities, an Iranian official said Wednesday (see GSN, July 6). “We do not want to escalate our position against Europe,” said Mohammed Shariati, an adviser to Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. “But if the Europeans escalate the situation, we might also escalate the situation,” he added. European companies supplied former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with materials used to manufacture chemical weapons, which Hussein used against Iranian civilian populations during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, according to Ali Shams Ardekani, who represented Iran at the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Disarmament in 1988. “German and other European companies gave him [Hussein] precursor (agents), which he only had to mix together to make chemical weapons,” Ardekani said. The Chemical Weapons Convention has many of the precursors in question on its list of chemicals banned for transfer to a nonstate party, according to a spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. However, the convention entered into force in 1997, nine years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the Star reported (Cilina Nasser, Daily Star (Lebanon), July 9).
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