NAM, China Lambast Sanctions against Iran

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and China blasted the western sanctions imposed against trade with certain members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), specially Iran.

The call came in a joint NAM-China statement issued on the first day of the 17th annual meeting of the OPCW members in the Hague, the Netherlands.

The statement which was recited by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said that imposing unilateral sanctions against the member states are against the contents of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and can impair its credibility.

The NAM members and China stressed the necessity for full and indiscriminate implementation of the CWC’s contents which underscore trade and international cooperation among the member states and call for the removal of all exports limitations imposed by certain countries with political motivations and goals.

Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the unilateral western embargos for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

The statement issued by the NAM and China also described the existence of chemical weapons as a major threat to the international peace and security, and expressed grave concern over the failure of certain countries which possess chemical weapons, in particular the US and Russia, to meet the deadline of April 29, 2012 set for the destruction of their arsenals.

Russia and the US are the biggest possessors of chemical weapons in the world.

The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is the implementation arm of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Convention aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass-destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by any country.