TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Tehran's Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Movahedi Kermani warned against Iran joining the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), saying it would subject the country and the resistance front in the region to even harsher U.S. sanctions.
The FATF, founded by some countries like the U.S. and Britain 30 years ago in Paris, purports to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism, however, it is a tool of the U.S. government to make sanctions on Iran and the resistance movement even more poignant, Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani told worshipers.
The cleric went on to say that a U.S. Treasury official had admitted that the FATF is needed to put pressure on Iran and subject it to more suffering.
Earlier this month, Iran’s Guardian Council said despite a recent parliamentary amendment to an FATF clause, other problems of the regulation still remain.
The council’s spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaei said most of the bill’s data-x-items are still contrary to the Iranian constitution and religious principles.
According to the Financial Action Task Force, Iran had until October to complete reforms that would "bring it into line with global norms or face consequences”.
To fulfill FATF requirements, the Rouhani administration has proposed four bills to the parliament for approval, two of which are still undecided, including the Palermo Convention.
Iran’s parliament in May adopted new amendments proposed by the government to the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) law as part of efforts to improve connections to the international banking and trade system.