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, [email protected]
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.

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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-Ed calling 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.

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