DOE reports—Ali Salajegheh described the environmental issues across the border in the meeting, stating that “Iran hosted many environmental meetings last year and this will continue this year.”
Expressing his satisfaction with the approval of the resolution on "Combating Dust Storms" in the United Nations General Assembly, and the holding of the "International Conference on Combating Dust Storms" in Iran, Salajegheh called this conference a great opportunity to use experiences. He emphasized the maximum participation of other countries and international organizations in managing and reducing the effects of this problem and the formation of the secretariat and the formation of technical and executive committees under it.
Head of the Department of Environment said, “In last year's meeting, the issue of the regional environmental organization and the regional fund to support the activities of the organization mentioned in the Tehran statement was approved, and several consultations were put on the agenda for its implementation.”
Salajegheh added, “We are ready to hold a meeting and use the experiences of other countries, according to operational experiences in the field of dealing with dust storms. In this regard, two sub-regional action plans have been prepared by Iran and have been provided to the countries participating in the meeting, and we hope that this problem will be solved by using all capacities.”
Salajegheh considered the international dust meeting as an international agreement to solve this problem, emphasizing the facilitating role of the United Nations in attracting the cooperation of neighboring countries for the allocation of historical environmental rights of the Hirmand River for the Hamon wetlands.
Pointing to the need to separate political issues from environmental issues (considering the fact that the environment is trans-boundary) and use the capacities of the United Nations and empower countries to fulfill their obligations, he clarified, “The problem of building dams in some countries has caused many environmental problems in region and it is necessary to solve this challenge with the mediation of the United Nations. In the conditions of oppressive sanctions, the United Nations should use international capacities such as environmental conventions to help with commitments in many fields of climate change, biodiversity, waste management, etc. Iran and other world communities should witness the improvement of the environment.”
The coordinator of the United Nations, Stefan Prizner spoke about the program under the agreements between Iran and the United Nations, stating, “The environment is one of the priorities for cooperation and efforts are being made to establish good cooperation in this field and follow up on environmental issues. Climate change, protection of biodiversity, and solving pollution are given serious attention by the Secretary General of the United Nations, and in view of Iran's hosting of the international conference on dealing with dust, we express our interest to cooperate and make the necessary arrangements.”
At the end of this meeting, it was proposed to make the necessary arrangements in order to hold the dust conference as well as a meeting with related UN agencies, including the United Nations Development Program, Epidim, the Organization for Agriculture and Forestry, the World Health Organization, under the guidance of the coordinator.