Policy

The Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Iran is not known to have made any statements on the ban convention in 2013 or the first half of 2014. Previously, in November 2012, it 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, an 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 states not party 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 these same arguments against the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[3]

Iran did not engage in the Oslo Process that created the convention.

Iran 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. Later, in 2012, it acknowledged this was its first participation in a meeting of the convention and described its presence as an indication of its support of Lebanon as “the main victims of cluster bombs used by Zionist regime” in 2006.[4] Iran has not attended any subsequent meetings of States Parties of the convention and has never participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva since 2011.

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.[5] Additionally, Iran possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets as well as a number of types of 122mm, 240mm, and 333mm rockets that it produces, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[6]

In September 2011, Iran stated that it is contaminated by cluster munitions used during the Iran-Iraq War.[7] According to one source, Iraq used air-dropped cluster bombs against Iranian troops in 1984 during the war.[8]

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.[9]