Global Security Newswire

Iran denied providing any assistance to the chemical weapons program once operated by the Qadhafi regime in Libya, Agence France-Presse reported on Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 21).

The Washington Post reported this week that the United States was looking into whether Tehran supplied hundreds of munitions that the now-deposed government in Tripoli filled with mustard blister agent. The decades-old weapons, discovered recently by forces that overthrew dictator Muammar Qadhafi, were not declared to the international organization that monitors compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.

"About the arms delivery to the regime of Qadhafi. ... The West would do better to look to itself, because Iran has always been at the forefront in the fight against chemical weapons," Iranian news organizations on Wednesday quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.

The official noted that Iranian troops had been subjected to chemical weapons strikes during the 1980-88 war with Iraq.

"Western countries have to answer how certain nations supplied the Iraqi regime with such weapons during the Iran-Iraq war," according to Mehmanparast (Agence France-Presse/Daily Star, Nov. 23).