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Iran
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in November 2012 Iran stated that its experience of contamination by cluster munition remnants means it “shares the humanitarian aspects” of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] In a meeting with the Monitor, the Iranian representative said the government acknowledges the humanitarian rationale for the Convention on Cluster Munitions and is against the use of cluster munitions, but has not joined the convention because it was negotiated outside of the UN, does not include major producers, and allows for joint military operations with non-State Parties that use cluster munitions. The delegate indicated that Iran’s position could change if the current political situation changes.[2]
In a September 2011 statement to States Parties, Iran listed the same arguments against accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[3]
Iran did not engage 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, Lebanon. In November 2012, Iran acknowledged this was its first participation in a meeting of the convention and described its presence as “an indication of our support to the peoples of Lebanon who are the main victims of cluster bombs used by Zionist regime during the 33-day war.”[4]
Iran was invited to, but did not attend the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. Iran has not attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including those held in April 2013.
A government official informed the Monitor in October 2012 that Iran is keen to participate in meetings of the convention, but it is limited by administrative challenges, including a domestic law that does not allow Iran to share the costs of international meetings of treaties that it has not joined.[5]
Iran is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not 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.[6] 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.[7]
In September 2011, Iran stated that it is contaminated by cluster munitions used during the Iran-Iraq War.[8] According to one source, Iraq used air-dropped cluster bombs against Iranian troops in 1984 during the war.[9]
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.[10]
[1] Iran stated that “we ourselves are faced with a huge problem of contaminated lands due to the leftover mines and cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war already used by the Saddam’s army.” Statement of Iran, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 November 2012, www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com12/statements/1Nov_Iran_conventional.pdf.
[2] Interview with Reza Najafi, Director for Disarmament and International Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in New York, 23 October 2012.
[3] “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.” Statement by Gholamhossein Dehghani, Director-General for Political International Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, dated 12 September 2011 (delivered 13 September 2011), http://www.clusterconvention.org/files/2011/09/statement_iran.pdf.
[4] Statement of Iran, UNGA First Committee, New York, 1 November 2012, www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com12/statements/1Nov_Iran_conventional.pdf.
[5] Interview with Reza Najafi, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in New York, 23 October 2012.
[6] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 840.
[7] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 309; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008, (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[8] Statement by Gholamhossein Dehghani, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 12 September 2011 (deliverd 13 September 2011).
[9] 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.
[10] 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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