Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif issued a statement on Saturday saying the chemical attack on people of Sardasht was a “clear example of war against humanity and war crime” by the Saddam regime.

On June 28, 1987, Saddam Hussein’s army dropped chemical weapons on the city of Sardasht, a Kurdish populated city in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province.

Following is full text of the statement published by the website of the Iranian Foreign Ministry:

On the 30th anniversary of Saddam Hussein regime’s use of chemical weapons against the defenseless and oppressed people of Sardasht, we commemorate the memory of the victims of this crime against humanity. Meanwhile, our thoughts and prayers are with the pure souls of these loved ones. The attack was a bitter and heart-breaking crime which once again revealed the innocence of the great Iranian nation during the eight-year-old Sacred Defense. It also generated a key document in the history on the absurd and unfounded claims raised by the so-called human rights advocates.

The great nation of Iran resolutely resisted an unjust war imposed by the regime of Saddam with the direct military, economic and logistic support of some regional states as well as international powers. The nation also experienced various blatant violations of human rights as well as inalienable wartime rights. These violations include the use of weapons of mass destruction against the Iranian military forces, missile strikes on the Iranian cities, and intentional and hateful demolition of cities like Khorramshahr by Saddam’s defeated army. All these crimes were carried out with either the support or amid the silence of the so-called advocates of human rights. The chemical attack against civilian and defenseless people of Sardasht was a clear example of war against humanity and war crime carried out by Saddam’s Ba’athist regime, which left hundreds of people martyred including women and children. However, we once again saw that the world’s superpowers did not take any decisive action or even send a message of regret and condemnation!

“Today, those powers which put forth claims about the use of chemical weapons in Syria under a suspicious and dangerous scenario are the same powers which not only closed their eyes to the use of illegal chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction against the Iranian civilians and troops but also got involved in the equipping process and providing support for the criminal regime of Saddam and therefore are complicit in Saddam’s crimes.”
Today, those powers which put forth claims about the use of chemical weapons in Syria under a suspicious and dangerous scenario are the same powers which not only closed their eyes to the use of illegal chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction against the Iranian civilians and troops but also got involved in the equipping process and providing support for the criminal regime of Saddam and therefore are complicit in Saddam’s crimes.

Unlike the hypocritical policies and double-standards of some self-proclaimed advocates of human rights including the U.S., the Islamic Republic of Iran vehemently condemns any use or threat to use weapons of mass destruction including chemical weapons. Iran also condemns resorting to such means as a pretext to prepare the ground for a set of illegal moves against the independent nations and governments across the world. Iran is against any use of such weapons by anybody, anywhere and anytime.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry commemorates the victims of the Sardasht chemical attack and their relatives, and marks the National Day of Fighting Chemical and Biological Weapons while reiterating the Islamic Republic’s determination to fight against any use of chemical weapons of any kind. It also calls on the international community to use all available capacities to stop the production, proliferation and use of any chemical weapons and to become more sensitive to the use and the threat to use of such weapons by such terrorist groups as ISIS and their regional and international supporters.