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- The 87th Standing Committee of the ExCom- UNHCR - Geneva, 15 June 2023
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Statement
By
Mr. Ehsan Matin razm
Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Before
The 87th Standing Committee of the ExCom- UNHCR
Agenda Items 2-b and 2-c
Geneva, 15 June 2023
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My delegation delivers its statement under two sub-agenda items: b) Statelessness and c) Oral update on Executive Committee conclusions.
Starting from the latter, I would like to sincerely appreciate all efforts made by Mr. Sumair Gul in his role as the Excom rapporteur, as well as the UNHCR team, for developing a balanced multi-year workplan for the Executive Committee.
During the informal consultations, Iran has reiterated the necessity of adopting a balanced approach between durable solutions and protections. We have also emphasized the need for UNHCR to focus on the main issues of its work and mandate. Accordingly, we highlighted the importance of measuring the impact of hosting as a crucial element for fulfilling burden and responsibility sharing.
Considering these facts, Iran supports the current decision of multi-year workplan.
Regarding statelessness, Madam Chair,
Iran has taken significant steps towards the prevention and reduction of statelessness in the country. This includes the adoption of a new nationality legislation named "Law for Determining the Nationality of Children Born from a Marriage of an Iranian Woman and a Foreign Man" in 2019.
Under the new law, children born to Iranian women and non-Iranian men are now able to acquire Iranian nationality. Even children under 18 years old can obtain Iranian citizenship if their Iranian mothers file the application. Individuals who are 18 and above can apply for Iranian nationality themselves. The law also allows persons without nationality to apply for Iranian citizenship once they turn 18, provided that they or one of their parents was born in Iran.
Although Iran is not a party to the convention on statelessness, the Government of Iran is taking concrete steps towards the prevention and reduction of statelessness in the country.
Since the implementation of these regulations, approximately 90,000 primary applications have been received by the relevant authorities, both virtually and in-person. Nearly 30,000 of these applications have been completed and filed for due process, resulting in the issuance of thousands of Iranian legal identity cards.
However, I must emphasize that this is not an easy task for my country. There are several challenges and difficulties associated with the implementation of the new rules, including continuous irregular movements and immigration, a lack of primary documents particularly for non-Iranian fathers, limited financial resources due to unilateral coercive measures, the need for additional security checks to prevent the misuse by criminal groups, human and drug traffickers, and administrative difficulties faced by local authorities due to the significant burden they are shouldering to address the plight of refugees as well as undocumented foreign nationals in Iran.
Despite these challenges, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been making its best efforts to address statelessness within the country. We expect that these efforts will be recognized and supported through the fulfillment of the principle of burden sharing by all members of the international community. I thank you.