UANI Responds to SWIFT's Statement Regarding its Relationships with Iranian Banks and Institutions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 2, 2012 Contact: Nathan Carleton, press@uani.com Phone: (212) 554-3296 UANI Responds to SWIFT's Statement Regarding its Relationships with Iranian Banks and Institutions New York, NY - United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, issued the following statement today regarding the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)'s response to UANI's campaign, posted today on SWIFT's website: SWIFT has responded to UANI's detailed legal explanation of how it violates international Iran sanctions laws with a cryptic and unsupported defense. SWIFT's statement speaks for itself: "SWIFT provides the network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardised and reliable environment." What SWIFT doesn't say is that these financial institutions include U.S. and EU sanctioned Iranian banks, including Iran's Central Bank: Bank Markazi. Iran's banks are widely known to be controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and are frequently used as the financial means to fund Iran's nuclear program, terrorist activities, and brutal human rights violations. This puts them in direct violation SWIFT's own corporate rules stipulating that "its services should not be used to facilitate illegal activities." Providing Iranian banks and financial institutions with BIC numbers and the essential means to access the global banking system is a clear violation of US and EU sanctions, and as such SWIFT needs to immediately end its relationships with all of them. On Monday January 30, UANI submitted a detailed legal explanation to SWIFT, international banking and regulatory officials, and U.S. lawmakers, showing how SWIFT is in violation of U.S. and EU sanctions by affording Iranian banks BICs and access to the SWIFT system. UANI's campaign was highlighted yesterday in The New York Times. Click here to read UANI's full letter to SWIFT. Click here to send a message to SWIFT. ### United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran's development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace. United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons. The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad; Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world; Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran; Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies; Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and; Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures. UANI is led by an advisory board of outstanding national figures representing all sectors of our country.

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