Iran, the leading state sponsor of terror, is scheduled to lead the United Nations Conference on Disarmament from March 18-29 and May 13-24, the U.N. announced last week.
Each year, the U.N. disarmament conference is presided over by one of the 65 member countries. Each country serves as conference president for four working weeks. The presidency rotates among the members in alphabetical order. Other countries to serve as conference presidents this year are India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, and Israel.
The Conference on Disarmament is the U.N. body in charge of negotiating nuclear disarmament treaties and a slew of other weapons agreements. Concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has grown in recent decades, especially as the Iranian regime has grown more aggressive in the Middle East through a network of terror groups.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a U.N. nuclear watchdog organization, warned last year that Tehran has likely stockpiled enough enriched Uranium to make several nuclear warheads. IAEA inspectors have for months attempted to gain access to Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear material for inspection, but Tehran has barred them.
“Though it may be drowned out due to all the other bad news out of the Middle East involving Iran, the regime is getting closer and closer to establishing itself as a threshold nuclear state,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News.
“If anything, Iran seems to be capitalizing on all the mayhem in the Middle East, mayhem which Washington has failed to curb or manage well, to press ahead in what appears to be a quest for the ultimate deterrent,” he added.
On October 7, the terror group Hamas, backed by Iran, invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to the death of roughly 1,200 Israelis and the capture of hundreds more in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. In recent weeks, Iran has stepped up direct attacks on its neighbors in Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan.
Iran’s strikes, carried out by the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, led to an unprecedented exchange of fire between Tehran and Islamabad. After an Iranian airstrike killed at least two children and wounded three others, according to Pakistan’s foreign ministry, Pakistani forces launched an airstrike of its own in Iranian territory.
According to Iran’s foreign ministry, the Pakistani airstrike killed at least nine people, none of whom were citizens of Iran. Tehran said that four children, three women, and two men died in the strike. Both sides justified their airstrikes saying that their attacks were directed at insurgents inside the other country aiming to attack their own.