Policy

The Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Iran has said that it cannot join the treaty as it sees military utility in antipersonnel landmines, especially on its borders.[1] At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in November 2021, Iran expressed appreciation for the treaty, but repeated its long-held objections to it, arguing that the treaty “does not adequately take into account the legitimate military requirements of many countries, particularly those with long land borders, for their responsible and limited use of mines to defend their territory. Because of the difficulty related to monitoring extensive sensitive areas by established and permanent guarding posts or effective warning system, unfortunately, anti-personnel mines continue to be the effective means for those countries to ensure the minimum security requirements of their borders.”[2]

Iran participated as an observer at several meetings during the Ottawa Process that created the treaty, including the Oslo negotiations and the Ottawa Signing Conference.

Iran has not attended any meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty since then.

As it has done in previous years, on 6 December 2021, Iran abstained from voting on annual UNGA Resolution 76/26, which called for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty.[3]

Iran is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions or the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Production, transfer, stockpiling, and use

There is evidence that Iran has manufactured and exported antipersonnel mines, though the current status of production and transfers is unknown, due to a complete lack of transparency from Iran.

In 2014, the Monitor received a copy of an English-language foreign sales brochure of Iran Ammunition Industries Group, which included two types of antipersonnel landmines among other weapons.[4] As of August 2020, Iran’s Ministry of Defense Export Center advertised the availability of the YM-IV bounding, fragmentation antipersonnel mine; and the YM-I-S, a self-neutralizing antipersonnel blast mine.[5]

Iran exported a significant number of antipersonnel mines during the 1990s and earlier. There is evidence that Iran has transferred antipersonnel mines since the Mine Ban Treaty was adopted.

The Monitor received information in 2002–2004 that demining organizations in Afghanistan were removing and destroying many hundreds of Iranian YM-I and YM-I-B antipersonnel mines, date-stamped 1999 and 2000, from abandoned Northern Alliance frontlines.[6] Iranian antipersonnel mines were seized in Afghanistan in 2008,[7] Tajikistan in 2007,[8] and Somalia in 2006.[9] Iranian-made landmines were sighted in Syria in 2021.[10] PMN pattern blast mines, of unknown manufacture, were reportedly stolen from Iranian stockpiles and purchased by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in neighboring Pakistan.[11]

Iran is thought to possess a large stockpile of antipersonnel landmines, but no official information is available on its size or composition.

The Monitor has not reported any new use of antipersonnel mines by Iranian forces since 1999.

In previous years, seven Iranian Kurdish armed groups pledged not to use antipersonnel mines by signing the Geneva Call Deed of Commitment. These include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), three factions of the Komala Party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (KDP), the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and the Kurdistan Freedom Party. The three factions of the Komala Party have stated that they used antipersonnel mines sporadically in the past.[12]