Iran Opposes Saudi Presence at Disarmament Conference

In remarks on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN Office at Geneva, Esmaeil Baqaei Hamaneh, deplored Saudi Arabia’s record of creating instability and its destructive role in the region and in the formation of a military coalition against its neighboring state which has slaughtered civilians, devastated Yemen’s infrastructures, and led to the spread of insecurity and instability in the region.

The Iranian envoy slammed as “destructive” Saudi Arabia’s attendance at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva as an observer, saying the Riyadh regime’s involvement in the conference would run counter to the forum’s goals and mission.

He emphasized that Iran has acted to prevent the participation of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the Conference on Disarmament, because the Islamic Republic has concerns for the protection of the Conference on Disarmament’s status and place as the only multilateral international institution in the nuclear disarmament sphere.

Baqaei Hamaneh further decried Saudi Arabia as the spearhead of plans to form coalitions for war and aggression against the neighbors, as the biggest stockpile of destabilizing weapons in the region, and a country pursuing its questionable nuclear program without supervision from the relevant international organizations, according to the government’s website.

He concluded that Saudi Arabia could not have any constructive presence in the disarmament debates, saying, “As experience shows, that country (Saudi Arabia) only abuses the meetings and discussions at the Conference on Disarmament to distract public opinion and pin the blame on others for its own mistakes and crimes in Yemen.”

According to the decision-making process in the Conference on Disarmament that operates on a consensus basis, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were blocked from joining the conference as observers in 2021 after the Islamic Republic’s opposition.