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Iran
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
In a September 2011 statement to the Second Meeting of States Parties of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Iran said, “We commend and support all efforts made to save civilians however it goes without saying that in order to be effective a convention regulating aspects of cluster munitions should include the major producers and former users of these munitions.” Iran added that “in order for such an instrument to be universal” it should be concluded “within the framework of the United Nations.”[1]
Iran did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention. It did not attend a meeting of the convention until September 2011, when it participated as an observer in the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut and made a statement focused on the challenges faced by countries contaminated by cluster munition remnants.
Iran is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Iran is not known to have used cluster munitions. It has imported cluster munitions and may have produced them.
Jane’s Information Group lists Iran as possessing KMG-U dispensers that deploy submunitions, PROSAB-250 cluster bombs, and BL-755 cluster bombs.[2] Additionally, Iran possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets as well as a number of types of 122mm, 240mm, and 333mm rockets it produces, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[3]
In September 2011, Iran stated that it is contaminated by cluster munitions used during the Iran-Iraq War.[4] According to one source, Iraq used air-dropped cluster bombs against Iranian troops in 1984 during the war.[5]
According to a United States (US) Navy document, on 18 April 1988, US Navy aircraft attacked Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats and an Iranian Navy ship with 18 Mk-20 Rockeye bombs during Operation Praying Mantis.[6]
[1] Statement by Gholamhossein Dehghani, Director General for Political International Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Convention on Cluster Munitions, Second Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 12 September 2011.
[2] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 840.
[3] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 309; Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008, (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[4] Statement by Dehghani, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Convention on Cluster Munitions, Second Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 12 September 2011.
[5] Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, Lessons of Modern War Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990), p. 210. The bombs were reportedly produced by Chile.
[6] Memorandum from the Commanding Officer of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) to the Director of Naval History (OP-09BH), “1988 Command History,” 27 February 1989, p. 20.
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