It gives me a great pleasure, as the Foreign Minister of the last victim of chemical weapons, to address the 11th Conference of States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention. In its invasion of Iran, the former regime of Iraq resorted to chemical weapons. Military personnel and civilians were targeted. Thousands of our citizens either lost their lives or suffered chemical injuries. There is no single month going without the demise of some of these victims. The situation of chemical injured persons, experiencing a gradual painful death, is abhorring. Many families, round the clock, cater to the special needs of these people. They face, at the same time, the emotional pressure of the victims’ gradual death. On top of all these, one might add the trauma the children of the victims are going through. This situation has also imposed a financial and logistical burden on the Government in terms of providing necessary services to over 60,000 chemical injured persons.