UANI Calls on UNIDO to Stop Funding Projects in Iran, End Its Relationships with Iranian Regime

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 14, 2012 Contact: Nathan Carleton, press@uani.com  Phone: (212) 554-3296      UANI Calls on UNIDO to Stop Funding Projects in Iran, End Its Relationships with Iranian Regime New York, NY - Today, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) continued its UN campaign by calling on the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to immediately end its funding of projects that support the Iranian regime, including those with sanctioned entities like the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO). UNIDO, the UN's primary industrial development agency, has done extensive work with the Iranian regime and even partners with IDRO, an entity sanctioned by the U.S., EU and other UN Member States for its role in advancing Iran's illicit nuclear and ballistic missile activities. UANI calls on UNIDO to end its partnerships and cooperation with sanctioned Iranian regime entities, and for UN member states to withhold funding to UNIDO until such action occurs. In a letter to UNIDO Director-General Kandeh K. Yumkella, UANI CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, wrote:             ... UANI finds UNIDO's activities in Iran and history of cooperation with IDRO disturbing. For example, the UNIDO website states that since 1999, UNIDO has implemented projects in Iran totaling $51.5 million.Several projectswereapparently implemented in partnership with IDRO.... It is unacceptable that a UN body such as UNIDO would enter into joint ventures with Iranian regime entities that are facilitating the Iranian regime's brutal campaign of censorship and repression. **** UNIDO's partnership with IDRO and activities in Iran directly counter the core foreign policy interests of dozens of UN Member States. Surely you must understand the disconnect whereby countries are imposing sanctions on IDRO only to have international organizations like UNIDO continue close relations and support for IDRO and Iran. Concurrently with this letter, UANI is also taking action to inform legislators and regulators in the U.S., the European Union and other countries about UNIDO's relationship with IDRO. Specifically, UANI will call for nations to withhold voluntary funding to UNIDO until UNIDO ceases its partnership and cooperation with sanctioned Iranian regime entities. .... As part of its UN Campaign, UANI is highlighting the Iranian regime's misuse of the UN system. The Iranian regime brazenly flouts multiple binding UN Security Council resolutions and misuses UN meetings and conferences, including the UN General Assembly, as platforms to promulgate hate speech, threaten other UN members with annihilation and deny the Holocaust. In August, Ambassador Wallace, UANI President, Ambassador Kristen Silverberg, and Ambassador John Bolton wrote a Wall Street Journal Op-Edcalling on the UN to suspend Iran's rights and privileges given its continued defiance of the UN's Charter and international law. In May, UANI called on the IMF to either close the accounts it holds with Iran's sanctioned Central Bank, Bank Markazi, or suspend Iran's membership in the IMF. Yesterday, UANI publicly called on the IMF to reconsider its plan to send a currency team to Iran. UANI has requested a response from UNIDO by November 26, 2012. Click here to read UANI's full letter to UNIDO.   ###  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.

Forward email American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran | 45 Rockefeller Plaza | New York | NY | 10111