The Chamber of Commerce is denying a report by the Fars News Agency in Iran suggesting that they, along with several other business groups, sent a statement to the head the head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines underlining their oppositions to U.S. sanctions.
“We did not send a letter to Iran, we sent a letter to the White House,” said J.P. Fielder, spokesman for the U.S. Chamber.
Fielder didn’t deny that the Chamber has contact with its counterpart in Iran, but that the Chamber sent no communication matching this description to Mohammad Nahavandian, who heads that group. “Not whatsoever,” Fielder said.
The Chamber issued the same denial to Greg Sargent.
As reported here, the Chamber and eight other groups did send a letter to the White House, opposing unilateral sanctions against Iran early last year. Fars News Agency paraphrases Nahavandian claiming he recently received a similar statement.
Fars reports, “[Nahavandian] said that the US Chamber of Commerce along with seven other institutions recently sent a statement to Iran and underlined the US private sector’s opposition to [sanctions].”
However, it’s not as if the White House letter was secret. It was reported at the time by Laura Rozen and others, and has been public for over a year. The Chamber is saying they never relayed it or anything similar to Iran directly, in contradiction to the Fars story.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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