News - Middle East: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called on Japan to join the Islamic Republic in leading a global movement to abolish weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). 

Iran and Japan, as two nations that have endured the horrors of weapons of mass destruction, “must lead a global movement for the total abolition of all WMDs: nuclear, chemical, and biological,” Araghchi wrote in an opinion piece published by the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun. 

The Iranian diplomat said Iran shares Japan’s pain and suffering from the use of WMDs, having been targeted with chemical weapons during its war with Iraq in the 1980s.

On June 28, 1987, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime dropped mustard gas bombs on the northwestern Iranian city of Sardasht, killing at least 119 Iranian civilians and injuring another 8,000, leaving some of them permanently disabled.

Araghchi said, "Iran has suffered from the effects of WMDs in its own modern history.”

He also recalled the US atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, describing them as a “testament to the devastating power of nuclear weapons.”

“Many survivors carry physical and psychological wounds that time has not healed," he said. “They have lived their lives in the shadow of those nuclear flashes, turning their trauma into tireless advocacy for peace and disarmament.”

The Iranian diplomat said that "few nations understand, as deeply as ours, the irreversible impact of WMDs."

“We must raise our collective voice to say: never again,” he stated. 

Araghchi has repeatedly reaffirmed Tehran's stance against weapons of mass destruction. During an event held on the 38th anniversary of the chemical attack on Sardasht, the foreign minister said that Iran, as one of the greatest victims of chemical weapons in modern history, has never ceased its pursuit of justice for the victims of such attacks.

He expressed hope that through collective determination, the world would one day rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and replace war with peace.

Press TV