I kinda gave up on 2024 Bingo right around the middle of January or so, but if you're still playing along, go ahead and mark this one off on your card:
Iranian navy Rear Adm. Shahram Irani declared that his country has 'property rights"'in Antarctica, particularly the South Pole, in a newly surfaced video.
'With regard to the South Pole, we have property rights there, and they belong to the public,' Irani said in the video of a television broadcast from last fall.
Okay so Iran has been working under this assumption since at least "last fall."
Seems like something we should've heard about before now!
The rear admiral said that the country's plan is "to raise the flag there" and that "it is not only military work but also scientific work that needs to be carried out." (Call me crazy but I'm thinking it's mostly military work.)
Note that nobody actually owns Antartica. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959, signed by most of the world's major nations, stipulates that the continent "shall be used for peaceful purposes only" and prohibits "any measures of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications."
Iran is not a signatory to that treaty, so it remains unclear if their claims can be contested in any meaningful way, although it's doubly uncertain if they themselves can assert those claims in any real way too. I mean we just don't really know how this is going to play out.
Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, have laid some territorial claims to Antartica, though those are generally not recognized by other nations.
Admiral Irani, meanwhile, suggested that the country was getting ready for some big moves on the icy continent:
Our scientists are getting ready for a joint operation, encompassing the efforts of all our people, in keeping with the guidelines of our leader.
Can you imagine Iranians trying to navigate the antarctic???
Uh, good luck with all that, Iran!
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