China's ZTE Contract with Iran Includes U.S. Computers

Reuters uncovered documents that suggest that China’s ZTE (News - Alert) Corp. may still have unfinished business with Iran. ZTE most recently made headlines when investigators identified the Chinese company as the source that supplemented Iran with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment in June. Although ZTE spokespeople claim that the company has no intentions of conducting further business with Iran, the documents suggest otherwise.

Among the list of 20 U.S. computer parts named in the contract are parts that the state of Washington has banned from being exported to Iran for years. IBM, Brocade, Greenplum Cisco, Microsoft (News - Alert), HP and Dell are among the companies whose products were named, but each one denies having any part of the ZTE/ Iran contract. In fact, IBM put out this public statement: “Our agreements with ZTE specifically prohibit ZTE from the transfer of IBM (News - Alert) products to Iran. If any of IBM's business partners are breaching our export compliance agreements, then IBM will take appropriate actions.”

The U.S. has remained vigilant in upholding Iran Sanctions, which have been implemented in an effort to prevent Iran from nuclear development. Although many countries have respected U.S. requests to refrain from conducting business with Iran, Moscow and Beijing have opted to keep trade open. ZTE is based out of Shenzhen, but the company has stated to the press that they “have no intention to implement this contract or ship the products.” However, there is a signed contract that must be addressed first. Next is the contract signed with the United Nations Security Council.

The United Nations Security Council Resolutions document 1929 states, “Stressing that China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States are willing to take further concrete measures one exploring an overall strategy of resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiation on the basis of their June 2006 proposals (S/2006/521) and their June 2008 proposals (INFCIRC/730), and noting the confirmation by these countries that once the confidence of the international community in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme is restored it will be treated in the same manner as that of any Non-Nuclear Weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons…”