Press Release: German-Iranian record deal shortly before presidential elections in Iran

STOP THE BOMB, 10 June 2009

This Monday the German company Basell Polyolefine GmbH signed a deal with the Iranian National Petrochemical Company (NPC). The agreement amounts to a record value of 825 million Euro. Basell Polyolefine will provide technology for three polyethylene facilities in Mamasani, Dehdasht and Borodshen in Southern Iran. Adel Nejad-Salim, Iran's deputy oil minister was present at the conclusion of the business transaction. (1) The Basell Polyolefine GmbH is a judicially independent part of the LyondellBasell company.  

„The deal before the presidential elections is a present for Ahamadinejad. The Iranian regime is encouraged by such deals to continue with human rights violations, the nuclear program and threats of annihilation towards Israel. Germany in this way undermines any kind of international pressure on Iran and the announced US-Iranian negotiations", says Jonathan Weckerle, spokesperson of the campaign STOP THE BOMB.

David Miliband, UK foreign secretary, has warned on June 8 that "time is running out" to stop the Iranian nuclear program and that the Iranian regime should be confronted with "increasingly tough sanctions". (2) Already on June 6 the French premier minister Sarkozy pointed at the possible necessity of tougher sanctions against Iran in autumn. In Germany, by contrast, the Iranian oil-minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari was invited by the German Near and Middle East Association (NUMOV) in May and campaigned for closer German-Iranian business ties without any public statement of criticism by the German Federal Government. (4) 

The campaign “STOP THE BOMB – No deals with the Iranian regime!” protests against the politically tolerated, if not promoted support of the Iranian regime by German technology-exports.

Sources:
(1) Compare: Persian news; News from June 9 2009 on http://iranoilgas.com/news/current/ (n o free access). A press speaker of the Basell Polyolefine GmbH on 9 June 2009 in a telephone conversation confirmed that the news were „not incorrect“. 
(2) Financial Times,  June 6 2009 
(3) Financial Times, June 8 2009
(4) Compare STB Press relase and Jerusalem Post.