BEIRUT, LEBANON (4:45 P.M.) – On Wednesday, the Iranian authorities vowed to pursue German companies for their role in arming the former Iraqi regime, headed by Saddam Hussein, with chemical weapons.
Iran’s permanent ambassador and representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ismail Baqai Hamaneh, stressed during the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that “Iran will never back down from pursuing Germany’s crime of arming Saddam with chemical weapons,” the Tasnim Agency reported.
He criticized “Germany for not bearing responsibility for its role in arming Saddam’s regime with chemical weapons,” considering “all legal and natural persons who contributed in some way to providing the former Iraqi dictator with these weapons as his partners in war crimes.”
He further expressed his “resentment at the speech of the German delegate in Geneva, who considered the issue of chemical weapons dating back four decades and that it was unjustified by Iran,” saying, “the issue of Saddam’s use of chemical weapons and the collusion of German companies with him is not only unforgettable in the minds of the Iranian people, indeed, but, the victims of these weapons are still tangible, who continue to suffer the consequences of injuries from chemical weapons.”
The representative of Iran welcomed the words of the German delegate, who claimed “to prosecute German companies involved in selling chemical materials to Saddam Hussein’s regime ,” stressing that “the Islamic Republic of Iran will not give up this blatant injustice, and expects the German government to publish the results of its investigations into the transfer of chemical materials in a correct manner.”
Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war between 1980 and 1988, which claimed over one-million lives in one of the most violent conflicts fought in the Middle East in the last 50 years.
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