Call for Halting Arms Sales to S. Arabia, Israel

Iran's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations warned against the continued sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel, which are in violation of other territories as well as humanitarian laws.

"We are deeply concerned about the destabilizing repercussions of the continual entry and export of such weaponry into the region, especially into Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime of Israel," Gholamhossein Dehqani said.

He said both Saudi Arabia and Israel are "engaged in aggression and violation against other countries and in flouting their commitments to international humanitarian laws."

Dehqani was speaking at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee at the world body's headquarters in New York, IRNA reported on Saturday.

He said the Saudi regime was using "British and American bombs" against civilian Yemeni infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an unsuccessful attempt to reinstall a fugitive president. The war has killed more than 10,000, according to UN figures in August.

Dehqani stressed the need for disarming Israel of its nuclear arsenal and for the regime's accession to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying that "the most dangerous weapons are in the hands of the most dangerous regime in the Middle East."

"The Zionist regime has recurrently perpetrated violations, occupation, genocide and terrorist activities; and nuclear weapons in the hands of such a regime constitute the most dangerous threat to NPT signatories in the Middle East," he said.

Israel, which has refused to sign the NPT or allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities, keeps an estimated stockpile of some 200-400 nuclear warheads.