Iran Biosafety Law has been approved in July 2009. Draft of Implementing regulation of National Biosafety Law has been developed and it is to be assessed by National Biosafety Council.

In our country all the pharmaceticals are strictly regulated by the Ministry of Health & Medical Education regulations.

Laboratory and green house researches are not in the scope of Iran Biosafety Law but procedures for export & import of LMOs for containd use has been mentioned in National Biosafety Law and in more details in implementing regulation of NBL. 

Detailed procedures of AIA has been developed in Implementing regulation of NBL which is to be assessed by National Biosafety Council.

Details of the implementation of Article 11, has been developed in the implementing regulation of Iran Biosafety law but at present Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture apply their previous regulations and guidelines that indirectly regulate LMOs as well.

In one of the chapters of Implementing Regulation of NBL, it has been explained  that the competent authorities has the right to reconsider their decisions.                                                         

In one of the chapters of implementing regulation of NBL, it has been mentioned that the issued permission is valid for one year.

Based on Our National Biosafety Law, Risk assessment is compulsory for LMOs but required guidelines has not been developed yet. For the time being Ministry of Health follows codex guidelines when it is needed. <br />&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

Detalis of Risk management procedure&nbsp; will be developed in a separate regulation.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

In our National Biosafety Law it has been mentioned that in case of emergencies the provision of this article will be consistent with provision of article 17 of Cartagena Protocol.

Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture consider ISO and Codex&nbsp; manual for detection of LMO-FFPs.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Based on National Biosafety Act, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health and Department of Environment are 3 competent authorities in Iran. As soon as resopnsible persons are designated by these organizations there will be introduced in BCH.

Most of the available information are registered in BCH. Some information does not exist and Some available information has not been registered in BCH because NBA implementing regulation which oblige different competent authorities to inform BCH about their activities is not approved yet.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

procedures to protect confidential information have been developed in Implementing regulation of NBL which is to be assessed by National Biosafety Council.

GEF approved and provided fund for: (1) Development of Iran National Biosafety Framework which was performed from 2002 to 2004; and (2) BCH capacity building project (phase I) which was performed in 2009, in a reasonable time but for the second phase of Biosafety capacity building project (implementing project) it has been quite a long time that we are waiting to be approved. <br />ِAs well as that ,The Course on ''The Analysis of Agricultural Products for the Presence of Genetically Modified Organisms'' was performed by collaboration of ICGEB and NIGEB from 10-12 May 2009, Tehran, Iran.<br />In a biosafety&nbsp; workshop that was performed in in Lebanon in 2009, one of the lecturers was invited from Agricultural Research Institute of Iran (ABRII). <br />

Establishment of National BCH through the UNEP-GEF capacity building project, helding several different workshops through NBF development&nbsp; and BCH capacity building projects were very useful for public awareness. Apart from that publication of 37 issue of seasonal biosafety Bulletin by NIGEB and distributing it free of charge among registered scientists, students and other interested people&nbsp; in all over the country has helped for public awareness very much.&nbsp; Moreover a few&nbsp; biosafety workshops are held annually by different related governmental organizations and scientific societies in Iran.

Required measures for illegal transboundary movement has been mentioned in Implementing regulation of NBL which is to be assessed by NBC.&nbsp;

Text of Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol has been translated to persian and has beeen sent to related organizatons to receive their opinions.

Regular Biosafety workshops and courses are required to teach and train our policy makers, regulators, scientists, students and so on because some of them still do not have a proper knowledge of biosafety and they think biosafety is an obstacle for progress of biotechnology in our country. That is why development and approvement of National Biosafety Law was taken very long time. This is almost our problem for development of the implementing regulation of NBL and we do not exactly know when it will be approved. <br />Apart from that, technical obstacles like equipped laboratories for risk assessment, required facilities for sampling and identification of LMOs&nbsp; for implementation of Article 18 and so on, are major problems for implementation of the protocol.&nbsp; <br />Therefore, we need capacity building and technology transfer and all the needs that have been mentioned in answer to question 147.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

With many thanks to the Cartagena Protocol secretariat to provide this format, answering to some questions with Just Yes or No Option was difficult. It was better that at least we could explain about each question in front of itself.

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Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Department of environment and Ministry of Science, Research & Technology Biosafety Committees all have had awareness and outreach programmes on Biosafety. (e.g. performing biosafety workshops, seminars and short courses and publications.)