{"id":10387,"date":"2020-01-08T11:18:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T07:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=10387"},"modified":"2021-10-02T11:23:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T07:53:54","slug":"uani-ties-to-the-mek-terrorists-raises-new-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/10387","title":{"rendered":"UANI ties to the MEK terrorists raises new questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article Summary
\nNew lobbying disclosures raise new questions about the ties between the hawkish organization United Against Nuclear Iran to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The main group pushing for regime change in Iran lobbied the head of the hawkish United Against Nuclear Iran on the sidelines of his organization\u2019s annual event in New York last fall, new lobbying filings show.
\nThe disclosure raises new questions about ties between United Against Nuclear Iran CEO Mark Wallace and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based umbrella group dominated by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The council also met twice with President Donald Trump\u2019s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani around the time of the UN General Assembly, drawing renewed attention to Giuliani\u2019s unregistered advocacy on behalf of the group.
\nThe council’s US office disclosed meeting Sept. 23 with Wallace to discuss \u201cdevelopments in Iran\u201d \u2014 the first time the group has reported meeting with the United Against Nuclear Iran CEO since registering to lobby in May 2013. The next day, Wallace hosted a gathering of Iranian opposition groups dominated by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, raising criticism from some Iran watchers distrustful of a group that the State Department designated a terrorist organization until 2012.
\nUnited Against Nuclear Iran sought to distance itself from the event at the time, saying Wallace had convened it in his personal capacity on the eve of the group\u2019s official annual summit Sept. 25. Al-Monitor, however, reported at the time that the program for the event was listed as United Against Nuclear Iran, something the group said was in error.
\nThe National Council of Resistance of Iran and United Against Nuclear Iran share similar views on Iran. Both applauded last week\u2019s US airstrike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, with United Against Nuclear Iran calling it a \u201csignificant blow\u201d to Iran\u2019s military power while the council labeled it a \u201cfatal blow\u201d to the regime in Tehran.
\nUnited Against Nuclear Iran did not respond to a request for comment for this story.The US office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran also disclosed meeting with Giuliani, the keynote speaker at Wallace\u2019s event, to discuss \u201cthe human rights situation in Iran\u201d and \u201cdevelopments in Iran\u201d on Sept. 23 and Sept. 25. The group previously disclosed lobbying Giuliani in September 2018.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Recruited By Giuliani,Maria Ryan is lobbying for the MEK terrorists<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Giuliani has long been plagued by accusations that he is taking money from the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and affiliated groups without properly registering as a foreign lobbyist. He told Bloomberg last year that he was paid by a US organization of Iranian-Americans rather than the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran to speak at the council’s rallies. Such \u201cgrasstops\u201d lobbying of influential figures who have the ear of government officials is fairly common, legal experts say, and would only require an intermediary to register as a lobbyist if he or she is shown to be acting on behalf of a foreign principal rather than simply providing a favor.
\nThe filing of the US office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran is also notable for revealing that Washington law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is serving as legal counsel to the council’s US office. In a statement to the Justice Department\u2019s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit, the firm argues that the donors to the National Council of Resistance of Iran should be kept anonymous to avoid retaliation by Iran.
\nAkin Gump notably lobbies for the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Iran\u2019s biggest rivals in the Gulf. Neither Akin Gump nor the National Council of Resistance of Iran replied to a request for comment about how long the firm had represented the council as legal counsel.
\nAkin Gump previously lobbied on behalf of the Iranian American Community of Northern California \u2014 which has been linked to the National Council of Resistance of Iran \u2014 to get the State Department to delist the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The firm reported $620,000 in lobbying-related payments for those efforts in 2011 and 2012.
\nThe council’s US office reported receiving more than $123,000 from June 1, 2019, through Nov. 30, 2019, from about 100 donors. The group reported spending more than $120,000 during that timeframe.
\nJulian Pecquet is the Editor of Special Projects for Al-Monitor, where he supervises the award-winning Lobbying Tracker as well as managing long-form stories. Before that he covered the US Congress for Al-Monitor. Prior to joining Al-Monitor, Pecquet led global affairs coverage for the political newspaper The Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article Summary New lobbying disclosures raise new questions about the ties between the hawkish organization United Against Nuclear Iran to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The main group pushing for regime change in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[642,243],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-10387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-paid-advocacy-for-mko","tag-treason-mujahedin-khalq","module-article","ctype-story","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10387"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=10387"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=10387"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=10387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}