Iran’s Expediency Council Says to Review FATF Bills
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani said the top legislative watchdog will review the remaining conventions of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The Expediency Council has put the two remaining bills on its working agenda and members of the council will review them, taking into account the country’s economic and security interests, Ayatollah Amoli Larijani said on Wednesday.
He further assured the Iranian people that the Council, which is in charge of settling legislative disputes in the country, would proceed with work on the bills “accurately”.
Ayatollah Larijani also called on all political parties to avoid any political ballyhoo.
It came several days after the Iranian administration said it had asked Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who appoints members of the Expediency Council, to authorize a renewed discussion on FATF’s Palermo and terrorist financing conventions in the Council.
The FATF voted on February 21 to keep Iran on its blacklist for what it said failing to comply with international anti-terrorism financing norms.
In October 2019, Iran’s parliament approved four bills put forward by the government to meet standards set by the FATF.
Only two of them have so far gone into effect and the fate of the two others, one on Iran’s accession to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the other one a bill amending Iran’s Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) law, is still in limbo.
FATF’s proponents have said the measure would smooth the path for Iran’s increased financial transactions with the rest of the world and help remove the country from investment blacklists.
Opponents, however, say membership in the FATF will only make the country vulnerable to outside meddling.
They say Iran’s implementation of FATF standards so far has not only failed to attract investment, but it has also exposed various institutions to extraterritorial regulations and penalties.
The FATF cannot impose sanctions, but individual states that are its members have used the group's reports to take punitive measures against their adversaries.
Iran has already been implementing a domestic anti-money laundering law as part of its efforts toward financial transparency. Additionally, it has long been combating terror financing.
