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Research institutes sever ties to Iranian think tank

Nearly 40 European and North American research institutes will suspend contacts with a leading Iranian think tank that helped organize last week's conference in Tehran of Holocaust deniers, a Paris-based researcher said on Saturday.

The institutes, from Warsaw to Washington and beyond, have agreed to suspend ongoing programs with the Iranian Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said a statement issued by Francois Heisbourg, who organized the boycott.

They have also refused participation in IPIS meetings or to invite IPIS staff to their own forums and to decline travel to Iran sponsored by the Iranian institute.

The conference drew denunciations from around the world.

Researchers, led by Heisbourg, decided to issue their own form of protest by boycotting the Iranian institute that organized it.

"It's the equivalent for us of breaking off diplomatic relations between embassies," Heisbourg said in a telephone interview.

Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and president of the Geneva Center for Security Policy, said the IPIS is a touchstone in Iran for foreign researchers.

The statement describes the IPIS as a "mainstream Iranian interface" with foreign think tanks.

"Through its complicity with the deniers of the absolute evil that was the Holocaust, IPIS has now forfeited its status as an acceptable partner," the statement said.

IPIS had the leading role in organizing the conference, calling for papers, sending invitations and arranging logistics, Heisbourg said.
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