Bagheri Kani made the remarks on Monday in a ceremony held in Tehran to mark the National Day against Chemical and Biological Weapons. The ceremony also commemorated the anniversary of a chemical attack in the Iranian city of Sardasht where the toppled regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein killed at least 110 people and wounded 8,000 others on June 28, 1987.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has never used inhumane weapons. It has instead supported and is supporting the elimination of the WMDs, and is now regarded among the most active and effective countries working to create a world free of chemical weapons”, the diplomat said.

He also spoke about the Sardasht strike and other chemical attacks by the Saddam regime during its 8-year war with Iran, as well as the military and political support which the toppled Iraqi dictator received from Western countries, particularly the US.

“The crime in Sardasht was definitely the most shocking by the Saddam regime, which by the end of the war in 1988, used chemical weapons 500 times in 5 western Iranian provinces”, he said.

Based on UN documents and Western intelligence reports, Western countries played the main role in supplying the Saddam regime with chemical weapons used against the Iranian people, Bagheri Kani noted, adding that the West also diplomatically supported Saddam as they prevented the UN Security Council from passing any resolution against the former Iraqi Baath regime.

Today, the same countries do not allow Iran to import medicines required by victims of those chemical attacks, the Iranian diplomat said in reference to Western-imposed sanctions on Iran’s financial sector, which dissuade companies from doing business with Tehran.

Those same countries are also supporting war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the Zionist regime against Palestinians in Gaza, Bagheri Kani further said.