The Islamic Republic of Iran has laid claim to land at the South Pole, suggesting it has plans to build military bases there.
The commander of Iran’s Navy made the assertion last fall when he told a TV interviewer that due to having an unobstructed path from Iranian territory to the South Pole, it is legally within its rights to lay claim to territory in the southernmost continent.
“With regard to the South Pole, as you know the beautiful beaches of Makran connect us to the South Pole. We have property rights there, and they belong to the public,” Rear Admiral Shahram Irani claimed, according to a translation by the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
The basis of the claim is apparently grounded in a nautical legal theory that confers property rights based on coastline, as addressed by Jennifer Dyer, a retired commander of U.S. Naval Intelligence who spoke with Fox News Digital.
“It’s an arcane topic, but little lies between Iran’s coast outside the Persian Gulf and the eastern hemisphere side of Antarctica,” Dyer said.
“In theory, Iran could claim an interest in Antarctica similar to India’s, Australia’s, New Zealand’s, or Chile’s, [or those of the UK and France, for that matter], with their island outposts in the southern hemisphere,” she explained, adding that the Antarctic Treaty of 1961 restricts territorial claims to the continent after 1961. Iran is not a signatory to that agreement, Dyer noted.
Irani claimed that Iran’s interest in Antarctica was militaristic and scientific in nature and would be conducted with the approval of the supreme leader of the Iranian state, per the MEMRI translation.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson denied that any of the $6 billion in Iranian funds unfrozen by the Biden administration and held in Qatar would be used for Iran’s military ambitions in the South Pole, per Fox News Digital.
Iran expert Potkin Azarmehr noted the absurdity of Iran’s claim to a continent thousands of miles away and said it speaks to the regime’s desire to distract a restive population, per Fox.
“Everything in Iran is reminiscent of the USSR in its last days before collapse. Ambitious but pointless plans by a state with completely wrong priorities. Unable to provide basic services to its people, bankrupt institutions but full of grandiose talks.”
