Mideast situation – Chemical weapons – Letter from Israel

DOCUMENT S/19699*

Letter dated 28 March 1988 from the representative

of Israel to the Secretary-General

[Original: English]

[28 March 1988]

I have the honour to enclose a statement of the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, dated 25 March 1988, regarding the recent alarming use of chemical weapons in the Middle East.

I should be grateful if you have this letter and its annex circulated as an official document of the General Assembly and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Johanan BEIN

Acting Permanent Representative of Israel

to the United Nations

ANNEX

Statement issued on 25 March 1988 by the spokesman of the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israe1

We find Iraq's action this week most alarming. They must serve as a grave reminder of the readiness of certain countries in the Middle East to make use of chemical weapons, mercilessly slaughtering defenseless men, women and children.

These acts constitute a violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol 1/ banning chemical warfare. The Govemment of Israel has repeatedly voiced its concern (most recently at the forty-second General Assembly of the United Nations) regarding the growing proliferation of chemical devices in the region, particularly in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Iraq has blatantly violated its commitments and obligations under the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Israel views this as a manifestation of the scorn with which some régimes in the region regard international agreements.

We view with acute dismay the silence of the international community in the face of atrocities committed against the ethnic minority of the Iraqi Kurds. It is instructive to note that to date this issue was not even mentioned at the meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference currently convened in Amman.

*Circulated under the double symbol A/43/262-S/19699.

Notes

1/ Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bateriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925 (League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. XCIV (1929), No. 2138).