40 institutes boycott Iranian think tank

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
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 Saturday. The institutes, from Warsaw to Washington and beyond, have agreed to suspend ongoing programs with the Iranian Institute for Political and International Studies, or IPIS, according to a statement issued by Francois Heisbourg, who organized the boycott. They have also refused participation in IPIS meetings or invite IPIS staff to their own forums and to decline travel to Iran sponsored by the Iranian institute. The Dec. 11-12 conference in Tehran drew Holocaust deniers from around the world to debate whether the World War II genocide of Jews took place. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a keynote speaker, said that Israel will one day be "wiped out" and "humanity will achieve freedom."