Iranian monument for chemical arms victims to be unveiled in The Hague

Iran’s envoy to the Netherlands says a memorial monument made by Iran and dedicated to the victims of chemical weapons will be unveiled during the 17th conference of the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

The Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) will hold its 17th session from Monday, November 26 to Friday, November 30, 2012 at the World Forum Convention Center (WFCC) at The Hague, the Netherlands.

Kazem Gharibabadi said on Saturday that one of the most important events at the conference would be the unveiling of an Iranian-made memorial monument dedicated to the victims of chemical weapons.

Iran’s Ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) added that Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad-Mehdi Akhondzadeh would attend the 17th international CWC conference in The Hague as Tehran’s representative.

“Given Iran’s chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), our country’s deputy foreign minister will elaborate the movement’s fundamental and common stances regarding the most important international issues and developments related to this organization by reading a statement,” said Gharibabadi, who is also Iran’s ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), on Sunday.

Gharibabadi added that 114 members of the convention are also members of the NAM.

“Last year, our country’s proposal to establish an international network for supporting the victims of chemical weapons was approved during the 16th annual Conference of the State Parties,” Gharibabadi added.

The Iranian ambassador said that the establishment of the network would be announced during the 17th session of the CWC conference.

Iran proposed the establishment of a global support network for the victims of chemical weapons during the 15th session of the CWC conference on November 29, 2010.

The proposal called on the OPCW to establish a voluntary fund to assist the victims of chemical weapons. The secretariat of the organization has been required to be in contact with regional, national and international organizations dealing with such victims and to allocate space on the OPCW website to information about them.

The initiative calls on the OPCW to establish a data bank on victims of chemical weapons to reflect on their medical needs.