TEHRAN -- Fourteen lawmakers representing constituencies in southern and western Iran have lodged a motion warning the foreign minister and the president about the recurrent dust storms afflicting provinces in those areas.

The dust storms descend on Iran from the deserts and dried-up ponds of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, MP Heshmatollah Fallahat-Pisheh told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.
Iran has signed a deal with Baghdad according to which Iraq should pour oil derivative mulch on deserts, said Fallahat-Pisheh, who is also a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.
About six months ago, 14 MPs from western border provinces asked Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki about Iraq’s inaction, but they have not yet received a straight answer, the MP added.
He said the lawmakers sent the motion to the president because the director of the Department of the Environment (DOE) is not legally obliged to respond to the Majlis since only ministers are held accountable to parliament.
The MP said a new wave of dust storms is entering Kermanshah Province and will reach Tehran over the next few days.
The 14 lawmakers stated that DOE Director Fatemeh Vaez-Javadi only got around to making an official visit to Iraq to discuss the matter when the dust reached Tehran.
If the pollution increased ninefold in Tehran, it increased a hundredfold in Kermanshah, Fallahat-Pisheh noted.
And the Majlis is adamant about following up the issue, he added.
Last week, an unprecedented dust storm enveloped more than half of the country, affecting the provinces of Qazvin, Kermanshah, Hamedan, Qom, Isfahan, Fars, Markazi, Khuzestan, and Tehran.
Many ponds which were once located in the arid and desert regions stretching from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to Iran have gone dry over the years. This ongoing desertification process has greatly increased the number of dust storms in the region.