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THE HAGUE, Netherlands18 May 2023The Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Fernando Arias, met with the Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, H.E. Mr Reza Najafi, on the sidelines of the Fifth Review Conference (RC-5) taking place from 15 to 19 May in The Hague.

The Director-General and the Deputy Foreign Minister discussed contemporary issues in disarmament and non-proliferation and their impact on the implementation of the Convention. Ambassador Arias briefed the Deputy Foreign Minister on the Organisations efforts to counter the threat of use of chemical weapons and strengthen international cooperation and capacity building in chemical emergency preparedness in Member States. The Director-General underscored the important role of the OPCW Centre for Chemistry and Technology (ChemTech Centre) in enhancing the Organisations activities in all areas of work relevant to the implementation of the Convention.

The object and purpose of the Convention will not be realised without its universal membership and total destruction of declared chemical weapons stockpiles. These are imperative to be fulfilled and the role of the OPCW is crucial in this regard, the Deputy Foreign Minister said.

It is a legal and a moral commitment and responsibility upon all of us to ensure that victims of chemical weapons get adequate medical support and assistance. Unfortunately, imposition of unilateral sanctions has exacerbated the health and medication of the victims of chemical weapons in Iran. We commend the OPCW Director-Generals efforts to find a way to meet their urgent medical needs and also request him to continue his good offices in this regard, he emphasised.

The Fifth Review Conference needs to have a consensus-based outcome to draw a road map for next five years of the OPCW, the Deputy Foreign Minister added.

I welcome the discussion with the Iranian Government on areas of collaboration to eliminate the use, threat, and re-emergence of chemical weapons. Joint action by all States Parties is crucial to achieve OPCWs mandate to safeguard and advance the global norm against chemical weapons, the Director-General said.

RC-5 presents an excellent opportunity to Member States to assess the status of the Conventions operation, set priorities for the Organisation for the upcoming years and ensure that it has adequate resources to deliver on all its mandates, the Director-General added.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been an active member of the OPCW since the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force in 1997. Iran is a member of the Executive Council, the OPCWs executive organ, which is charged with promoting the effective implementation of and compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention as well as supervising the activities of the Organisations Technical Secretariat.

As the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW, with its 193 Member States, oversees the global endeavour to permanently eliminate chemical weapons. Since the Conventions entry into force in 1997, it is the most successful disarmament treaty eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

Over 99% of all declared chemical weapon stockpiles have been destroyed under OPCW verification. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

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OPCW Director-General meets Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for ... - Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

ByDavid Daoud

Readmitting Syria to the Arab League is a strategic mistake. On paper, the logic behind such a move appears sound. For the better part of the last decade, most of the Arab world hoped that Syrias uprising would dislodge Bashar al-Assads regime. As the dust has begun to settle on that conflict, it is apparent that those hopes were misplaced. In short, Assad won.

The most obvious objection to readmitting the Assad regime into the so-called Arab foldand the halls of the Arab Leagueis a moral one. Assads crimes over the past decade set him apart from other living Middle Eastern autocrats. They demand that he remain a pariahnot be slowly renormalized as a legitimate international actor. After all, Assad emerged victorious in the Syrian Civil War by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his people, wounding and torturing scores of others, and displacing millions more. His blood-bought victory has visited immeasurable pain upon the Syrian people and the effects of this could last for decades.

However, reality and history rarely allow for statecraft to be so morally neat. In formulating his concept of raison dtat, Cardinal de Richelieu, Frances chief minister from 1624-1642, declared that Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter. The state has no immortality, its salvation is now or never. In other words, states receive neither credit nor reward in this life nor the next for making the morally correct choice. They are only rewarded for doing what is necessary.

To a degree, that holds true regarding Syria. Realityand the outcome of the Syrian Civil Warpresented the Arab world with two choices: the first is to permanently boycott Assad and allow Irans dominance over Syria to continue growing. In the interim, this diplomatic isolationcoupled with a financial siege in the form of US-led sanctionswould prevent Syrias resurgence or reconstruction. The Syrian people would then continue to suffer from Assads dictatorial rule and the various shortages and deprivations brought about by his destructive war, which would be further compounded by sanctions. Alternativelyand that is the path being chosen by the Arab worldattempts could be made to lure this particular fly away from Tehran with honey, begrudgingly reestablishing ties with him to create a counter to unchecked Iranian influence.

However, the logic underpinning the second optiondrawing Assad back into the Arab orbitis unsound, founded on the faulty premise that there remains such a thing as an independent Syrian regime and Assad to woo back from Tehran.

The Syrian dictator can now be effectively considered the glorified Mayor of Damascus, merely ruling that fiefdom at Irans pleasure. No matter how much Arab backing he has, Assad cannot ask Iran to leave his country willingly. Ensuring Syria does not proverbially fall into enemy hands is an existential matter for Tehran. High-ranking Iranian officials have described Syria as Irans Thirty-Fifth Province to emphasize that they view anti-Iranian activity in Syria on par with domestic unrest. The Iranians simply dont trust Assad to be able to hold the country without their presence and control.

Additionally, Iran has invested too much blood, treasure, and political capital in Syria to ever leave the country without a fight. Nor can Assad forcibly eject them, with his Syrian Arab Army having been decimated by defections during the civil war and fighting. As far back as 2016, Hezbollah and Irans other proxy militias bore the brunt of fighting opposition forces and assumed control on the ground. By contrast, the Syrian Arab Army assumed a symbolic and secondary role.

That is why this effort to cajole Assad back into the Arab foldfloated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as early as 2016, but now enthusiastically led by Saudi Arabia since late March 2023is unlikely to succeed. Theres little left of an independent Syria to work with. Nor can Arab intervention in Syria remedy that shortcoming, since it is unlikely to be as deep nor as intrusive in the countrys internal affairs as Irans.

Recalling a 2021 conversation between myself and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on the matter, he said: We dont get involved in a countrys internal affairs. But Iran does.

The Gulf States are, effectively, leading the Arab world into replicating their old approach to Syrias neighbor, Lebanon, which has also failed to produce any results. This is despite Irans influencethrough its proxy Hezbollahbeing more diluted in Beirut than in Damascus, owing to the Byzantine nature of Lebanese politics. If anything, Hezbollah exploited the stability provided by the Gulfs assistance to Beirut to grow inside Lebanon. Iran can be expected to do the same in Syria, particularly if reconstruction aid manages to enter the country.

Assad is likely acutely aware of this situation and unlikely to attempt to break away from Iran or undermine its interests willingly. Tehrans history of dealing with rebellious subordinates is certain to deter him. Assad risks being liquidated for stepping out of line, with Tehran blaming his death on Israelas Hezbollah did with Rafik Haririsfor failing to offer enough concessions. Or they could opt for the route chosen by Houthi proxies in regard to Yemens Ali Abdullah Saleh, where they declared him a traitor deserving of death.

Russia, the other actor with influence in Syria, cannot be relied on to erode Irans control over the country. Since Tehran will not leave the country willingly, that would require Moscow to relitigate the entire Syrian Civil War. But this time, they would have to fight against an adversary in Iran that is more formidable than the Syrian opposition. In fact, even prior to its entanglement in Ukraine, Russian forces repeatedly backed down in the face of Iran and its proxies in Syria, demonstrating who had the upper hand on Syrian soil. Moscow would have to embark upon this task even though its interests in SyriaAssads survival, Russias armed presence in Syria, and maintaining Damascus as a military clienthave been secured.

The absurdity of betting on Russia to restore Assads independence from Iran is further compounded by the fact that, to do so, Moscow would have to divert its ground troops away from a war it views as existential in Ukrainewhere the Russian army is now bogged downto fight Iran, an actor that has been acting as its indispensable ally in that war.

Assads victory in the Syrian Civil War must not be his ticket to readmission into the family of civilized nations, including in the Arab world. He achieved his victory by mercilessly slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his people. Reestablishing ties with him will not alleviate the suffering of those Syrians who remain under his regime. The ultimate benefit will accrue not only to Assad, but to the power that controls and keeps him in the presidential palace: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

David Daoud is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Image: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi react during the signing of cooperation agreement in Damascus, Syria May 3, 2023. REUTERS/Yamam al Shaar

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The Arab League thinks readmitting Syria will push out Iran. They're ... - Atlantic Council

A $10 billion project has been agreed to develop a vast natural gas field shared between Qatar and Iran.

The deal was signed by QatarEnergy with French-owned Technip Energies for the scheme in the worlds largest natural gas field.

The Iranian part, known as South Pars, supplies 70% of Iran's gas.

In a statement on Tuesday,QatarEnergy stated thatthe project will include two giant liquefied natural gas (LNG) production lines, with an annual capacity of 16 million tons.

The company saidthe extra LNG capacity would increase the country's total production by 60 percent reaching 126 million tons by 2027.

The Russian war on Ukraine and sanctions imposed by Europe and the US on Moscow have increased global demand for Qatar's gas.

The rapid development of the Qatari part comes as the completion of the remaining phases of the Iranian part has been delayed for years.

Just to maintain current production, Iran needs to invest up to $50 billion in its gas fields, especially in the Persian Gulf offshore South Pars reserves shared with Qatar.

In Irans gas fields, as any other in the world, underground pressure that pushes the gas out declines over time, so necessitating modern technology to maintain production level. However, such equipment is only provided by a handful of Western energy giants and the sanctions against Iran are a barrier for them to invest.

Although Iran has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world, holding more than 17 percent of global fields, the government has issued warnings of power cuts in winter, as power plants that lacked sufficient gas supplies were forced to switch to less efficient liquid fuels.

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Qatar Signs $10B Contract To Develop Gas Field Shared With Iran -

TEHRAN - Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, on Thursday reacted to allegations by Azerbaijan that it had arrested a number of individuals with links to Iran, saying Iran didnt have any links to them.

Kanaani said Azerbaijans security apparatus and prosecutor-general have been leveling chain of accusations against Iran.

Unfortunately, the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been arresting and keeping its citizens in custody for some time on a charge and bogus allegation of links with Iranian institutions, he said in a statement, according to Tasnim.

He said Iran did not have any official or unofficial ties to the detained persons.

The popular relationships between the citizens of the two countries are heartfelt, emotional, historical, religious and even family-based. The government of the Republic of Azerbaijan should not attribute such deep-rooted and historical bonds of its nationals to security issues or associate them with neighbors, Kanaani added.

Kanaani noted that every government has the inherent right to take action against the law-breaking citizens, but made it clear that Bakus move to arrest and imprison many citizens by making the allegation of connection with Iran is inadmissible and unacceptable.

The Republic of Azerbaijans interior ministry, security service and the office of prosecutor general said in a joint statement on Tuesday that at least nine Azeri nationals have been arrested, suspected of being linked to Iranian secret services and of plotting a coup and assassinations.

The statement gave nine names and said several other people had been arrested.

Earlier this month, Kanaani praised the strength of relations between Iran and Azerbaijan despite the recent tensions that resulted in a tit-for-tat expulsion of each others diplomats.

He said, The relationships between the two countries are unbreakable, and we should not take any actions that are not in the interests of the two countries but are in the interests of the parties who want to harm those relations.

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Iran dismisses links to people arrested in Azerbaijan - Tehran Times

19 May, 2023

Iranian border guards injured two kolbars in the border areas of Piranshahr and Sarvabad in north-west Iran on 18 May.

In recent days, border guards also raided the barns of a number of villagers in the Hengeh-ye Zhal border area of Baneh, Kurdistan province, and took some pack animals to the border areas and shot them.

On 18 May, border guards opened fire on a group of kolbars in the Mirgah-e Derizh border area of Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province, severely injuring kolbar Farough Azizi.

The 43-year-old father of three from Piranshahr was taken to a medical centre in the city of Soran in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq by a group of kolbars.

At the same time, kolbar Habib Mohammadi, from Marivan in Kurdistan province, fell from a height in the Tateh border area in the Hawraman region while being chased by border guards.

Over the past two days, hundreds of kolbars in the region were surrounded by border guards with no access to water or food.

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Iran border guards injure two kolbars in north-western border region -