Don’t make joining the FATF a matter of pride
Don’t make joining the FATF a matter of pride. FATF, which stands for Financial Action Task Force, is one of those terms that perhaps most people around the world, except for politicians and economic activists, have heard less about. However, in our country, people have become familiar with this term for nearly a decade, and of course, discussions around it range from technical and specialized issues to political topics circulating in various media and forums. So much so that if we talk to people from different walks of life, they speak about its intricacies in such a way that once again we encounter a division similar to many political and social issues existing in society.
Some see resolving a part of the country’s economic problems and economic relations with the world as contingent upon its approval in the Expediency Discernment Council and getting out of its blacklist. Others perceive it as another tool of international pressure on Iran. And, of course, amid these discussions, the issue of governments’ efforts and roles in joining it arises. A topic that has resurfaced with the change of government and considering the statements made during the election campaign about expanding economic relations with the world. Pursuing this matter by Massoud Pezeshkian has once again been raised, and once again, discussions and divisions have expanded in the political and media space.
Just yesterday, Abolfazl Abutorabi, the representative of Najafabad in the Parliament, opposed the discussions that have arisen over the past few days on this subject. He said regarding the resolution of the FATF issue, stating that the Parliament will never accept this disgrace for itself, and we will not join Palermo. He mentioned that the FATF has two very important issues that the Parliament must approve. The first is joining Palermo. If we join the Palermo Convention, all liberation movements like Hezbollah, Hamas, and others will be recognized as terrorist organizations, meaning we are cutting off our own strong hands.
As long as the Islamic Consultative Assembly does not approve Palermo, joining the FATF is impossible. He continued, stating that the FATF is a tool and a weapon in the enemy’s hands to pressure us into giving them our data, emphasizing that today data and information are very valuable. They want to take our information and use it in a war against us. This member of Parliament, regarding the President’s order for economic and high-level institutions in the country to cooperate to alleviate concerns about the FATF issue, said that it will not be resolved. One of the institutions in this regard is the Parliament. The Parliament must decide on these two remaining issues, one of which is Palermo, and it must certainly come to the Parliament according to the Constitution, and the Parliament will not accept this disgrace and will not vote for it. On the other hand, the Leader’s emphasis has been that instead of putting our energy into joining the FATF, why don’t we come and strengthen the fight against money laundering, for which a High Council has been formed?
Recent discussions
A year ago, in the same month of Mehr, Seyed Ehsan Khandoozi, the government’s economic spokesperson, denied the government’s attempt to reintroduce joining the FATF by Seyed Ebrahim Raisi’s government in the Expediency Discernment Council and said that the Islamic Republic’s policy regarding the FATF has not changed at all, and regardless of international conventions, we fight money laundering based on our own beliefs, and we believe the Financial Action Task Force should look at issues technically.
And now Massoud Pezeshkian, who was against the restrictive, anti-development, and fundamentalist view in the presidential election, spoke about resolving commercial problems with the world, negotiation, and preventing the building of walls around the country in all the discussions about relations with different countries. It was with this view and approach that he was able to gain the upper hand and make the majority of those who participated and voted in the election vote for him and win the election. In other words, more than being able to see Pezeshkian’s victory as support from the people for a political organization and movement, he was a victory of the people saying no to the rival movement, which was beating the drum of war and further restriction of the country. Now, as President, he must pursue the people’s demands and expectations.
In a press conference with journalists, in response to a question from a Donyaye Eghtesad reporter about how the fourteenth government can help alleviate poverty and improve the economy by addressing imbalances, he said regarding lifting sanctions, we have no choice but to resolve the FATF issue. I will certainly write a letter to the Expediency Discernment Council to reactivate the FATF discussion so that we can solve it, and it must be resolved.
A week later, Fatemeh Mohajerani, the government spokesperson, referred to this issue in a press conference and, in response to a question about the re-examination of the FATF in the Expediency Discernment Council, said the issue is being pursued in coordination with the Expediency Discernment Council and with regard to national interests. The lifting of sanctions, considering the Supreme Leader’s remarks, has made it obligatory for us because he emphasized that wherever sanctions can be lifted, it must be done. Negotiations are a two-way street, and all groups must strive to lift them. We are trying to lift the sanctions, but everyone must make an effort.
Following these remarks, the media began to pursue the issue through various channels, and of course, government officials also spoke about it at different intervals.
As Abdolnaser Hemmati, the Minister of Economy, wrote on his social media account on X, considering the repeated efforts of the country’s enemies to create financial constraints for Iran, which is one of the influential factors in Iran’s sanctions, this morning I presented a report on the current situation and necessary actions for normalizing Iran’s case in the FATF to the President. These actions differ from what is said in the media. He ordered that necessary actions be taken to lift restrictions and suspend the countermeasures of the FATF within the framework of the country’s national interests, and at the same time, to address internal concerns and worries in this regard through the cooperation of economic institutions with the Supreme National Security Council.
With cooperation and consensus, we will reduce financial restrictions against Iran.
For example, Majid Ansari, the Vice President for Legal Affairs, also emphasized in this regard that, technically, this subject falls within the work domain of our colleagues in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Central Bank, and other relevant authorities. However, from the perspective of the legal work process, you are aware that the two remaining conventions from the FATF set, one of which is organized crime and the Palermo issue, were both left unresolved in the Expediency Discernment Council.
The Expediency Discernment Council also removed this issue from the agenda due to its discretionary power. It is possible that if the set reaches a final consensus and the process proceeds, with the green light from the Council, the FATF could be put back on the agenda of the Council.
Moreover, if the President and the cabinet decide to pursue the issue, there is a capacity for the Expediency Discernment Council to reinstate this topic. The process of ratifying the FATF in the Parliament has been completed, the subject has been brought to the Council, and in the Council, based on considerations, it has been left unresolved for now.
If the set concludes that actions are needed, I predict that the Council will cooperate and collaborate with the government, and the FATF will be approved.
In this context, Jafar Qaem Panah, the Executive Vice President, also announced that a letter requesting a re-examination of the FATF will be sent by the government to the Expediency Discernment Council, and practically all signs indicate the fourteenth government’s efforts to obtain the Council’s approval regarding the FATF and conclude this file. On the other side of the story, there are staunch opponents, one of the most important of whom are the members of Parliament who claim that joining this task force must once again pass through the gate of Parliament.
The other side of the story
In recent days, as the pursuit of the FATF has been raised, the opposing faction to the government has once again expressed their opposition to its approval.
As the Kayhan newspaper emphasized in its special news column that the FATF is a completely politicized task force with a legal mask, it wrote that the main culprits of money laundering and terrorist financing in the world rule over this task force.
Currently, 76% of major money laundering operations in the world are carried out in the United States and Europe, and these are also the biggest political and financial supporters in the world.
An important point that Mr. Hemmati, Ansari, and others are certainly aware of is Mr. Zarif’s response to an important question about the FATF. When Rouhani’s government officials were confronted with the question of what guarantee there is that with the implementation of the other two FATF demands, sanctions will be reduced and not increased, they, observing the instructive realities, said there is no guarantee.
The article continues that from the perspective of Western countries, activities carried out to circumvent sanctions are considered money laundering, and some institutions and groups that play a key role in the country’s security, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regional resistance groups, are considered terrorist groups. Acceptance of these standards would oblige the Islamic Republic to refrain from providing financial services to institutions and individuals deemed as terrorism by the FATF or other countries.
This action would lead to the internal sanctioning of the country’s security institutions, self-sanctioning, and it is obvious that reducing the capacity of security and military institutions would jeopardize the country’s security. And a day later, in another article, it was pointed out again, stating that now, right in the middle of the biggest battle between right and wrong, which many believe is supposed to determine the fate of many things, including the fate of the region, some have once again brought up the FATF, the Financial Action Task Force, and this issue has been on their lips and pens for a few days.
Some have even written that without it, national consensus will not be formed. They keep saying that this issue must be resolved to overcome many of the country’s economic and even non-economic problems. On the other side, one of the main reasons opponents of the FATF cite is that the definition the Financial Action Task Force has of terrorism differs from the definition we have.
According to their definition, our Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah of Lebanon, and Palestinian fighters are considered terrorists. Additionally, the United States and the Zionist regime have significant influence in this special group. While Marshall Billingslea, the then-President of the FATF, explicitly admitted in a hearing of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that we have close cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter Iran, and Matthew Levitt, director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently emphasized that FATF oversight of Iran’s international activities should be increased. One of the methods to weaken Iran’s proxy groups, the resistance axis, and to empower proxy wars is to expand supervision over Iran’s banking activities.
Now think a little about these few lines and the topic of this note. Is bringing up the outdated and dangerous FATF, which during Mr. Rouhani’s government, 39 of its 41 demands were implemented, and its damaging consequences are still felt, in the middle of a large, complex, and decisive war a coincidence? Some in Iran, either out of ignorance or for any other reason, have started suspicious efforts to revive this dead issue, the first and last goal of which, whether they know it or not, is to weaken the resistance axis in the middle of the war. Serving the Zionist regime couldn’t be clearer.
Meanwhile, other opponents have also reacted to the government’s efforts. For example, Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, recently in an interview, referring to the halting of the examination of the two remaining FATF recommendations in the Council, said the FATF issue is stalled in the Council, and this halt in examinations is not related to today. Although some media have mistakenly raised the issue of Iran joining the Financial Action Task Force against money laundering, the point is that the Islamic Republic of Iran has implemented 39 of the 41 recommendations of this group, and the issue of joining is misleading and incomplete.
The reason for not accepting the two remaining recommendations, according to experts, is that accepting these two recommendations would lead to internal sanctions on the country and hinder many of Iran’s financial interactions. Furthermore, raising the issue of sending a letter to the Council will have implications for the economy and the political space of the country. In a situation where the government intends to organize the country’s economy, the FATF issue does not have much place, and raising it leaves many negative impacts on the market. Issues like the FATF have a past that can be studied, and everyone should be aware of these issues.
Currently, we are not in an election season to want to gather votes, so we must deal with such phenomena more measuredly, accurately, and based on more precise documentation. Complete information on the FATF case is available and should be reviewed, and if we want to use the FATF for advertising purposes, it is a very wrong action.
Or Mostafa Mirsalim, another member of the Council, stating that no letter has been sent by the government to the Council, in response to the question of whether the positions of Council members regarding this bill have changed or if there is a possibility of changing their position, said the main point in the government’s joining the Financial Action Task Force is the necessity of lifting the oppressive sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic has internally passed strong laws to prevent any financial support of terrorism and to prevent money laundering and is committed to it. However, the United States and its followers are trying through organizations and entities like the Financial Action Task Force to prevent any support for liberation movements by labeling them as terrorists and to maintain their oppression and aggression worldwide.
We have a real disagreement with the United States and its followers on the definition of a terrorist group or organization or action. We consider Israel and the seventy-year genocide by the Zionists as a clear example of terrorism, and the support of the United States and Westerners for the bloodthirsty Israel as a perfect example of supporting terrorism, including the recent actions of the United States in sending weapons and ammunition to Israel to suppress the rightful Palestinians of oppressed Gaza, and they, with complete audacity, have labeled the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the resistance front as terrorists and have continuously increased the number and types of their oppressive sanctions against us. It does not seem that as long as they remain in their clear hostility, a new result can be achieved. Everyone believes that not joining the Financial Action Task Force has costs for us, but joining it without lifting the sanctions has more harm, and naturally, between bad and worse, one should not choose the worse.
Claims of the Parliament members
Simultaneously with these statements and emphases on the unchanged opinion of the Council, the Parliament members also raised the issue of the expiration of the examination of the tenth Parliament’s resolution on this matter in the Council. As Alireza Salimi, the spokesperson for the Parliament’s presidium, announced that given that the time for examining bills like Palermo and CFT has expired, these bills must be sent to the Parliament and reviewed through the Parliament. Therefore, it can be said that considering that joining the FATF is not a decision that can be made solely by the government, achieving such an agreement requires the cooperation of various legislative and executive institutions.
And yesterday, Abutorabi brought it up again. Of course, regarding the expiration of the examination period of bills in the Council, various discussions have been raised. Previously, Mohammad Sadr, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, stated that there is no specific time frame for addressing plans and bills sent to the Council, and emphasized that regarding the two bills of Palermo and CFT, it is planned that the issue will be resolved before the four-month deadline set by the FATF. However, there is no time frame specified for the Council according to the regulations, and Ali Teghizadeh, a constitutional law expert and a former member of the sixth Parliament, says in this regard that Article 112 of the Constitution does not set a specific time frame for the Expediency Discernment Council to address issues and resolve disputes. The government can pursue this resolution of the Parliament in the Expediency Discernment Council. Of course, changes have been made to the Council’s internal regulations, which, if applied retroactively, could create limitations for re-examination.
As stated in Article 112 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Expediency Discernment Council is formed by the Leader’s order to determine expediency in cases where the Guardian Council considers a resolution of the Islamic Consultative Assembly against Islamic law or the Constitution, and the Assembly does not accommodate the Guardian Council’s opinion, considering the expediency of the system, and for consultation on matters referred to them by the Leader and other duties mentioned in this law. The fixed and variable members of this Council are appointed by the Leader.
The regulations related to the Council are prepared and approved by the members themselves and will be confirmed by the Leader. Of course, he also refers to the internal regulations of the Council and says that limitations should be reviewed based on it. A subject that can expand discussions and become the main basis is the internal regulations of the Council, which before the current regulations approved in August 2022, made conditions dual. In the previous regulations in this regard, there was no limitation for reintroducing topics in the Council over time, and in Article 25, it was stated that the President can also request the Council to review the resolution, and the President of the Council can place the resolution in opposition on the Council’s agenda if deemed necessary. However, in these new regulations approved last year, there are limitations.
Article 31 states that the deadline for the Council’s opinion on Parliament’s resolutions that do not meet the Guardian Council’s opinion is a maximum of three months. If the review of the Parliament’s resolution requires more time, the mentioned deadline can be extended by up to three months upon the proposal of the relevant commission and the approval of the President of the Council. Note 1: In cases where there is a time limitation, such as resolutions passed in Parliament with two or three urgencies and budget-related resolutions, the opinion will be given within a maximum of one month. Note 2: If the expediency opinion of the Council is not communicated by the end of the above periods, the Guardian Council’s opinion will be decisive. Based on this, regarding the Council’s opinion and the government’s pursuit through the Council, it should be seen whether the current regulations will be applied retroactively or if this subject will return to the conflicting cases after the change in regulations.
If it is also extended to previous conflicting cases, the review of Palermo or Iran’s accession to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime was also removed from the agenda of the Expediency Discernment Council on October 9, 2019. Additionally, two other bills under the FATF, namely the bill to amend the law on combating the financing of terrorism and the bill to amend the law on combating money laundering, were turned into law with the Parliament’s approval and the Guardian Council’s confirmation on August 8, 2018, and January 5, 2019, respectively.
Therefore, the CFT or Iran’s accession to the Convention on Combating the Financing of Terrorism was the last bill under the FATF that was rejected by the Guardian Council and referred to the Expediency Discernment Council as a conflicting bill between the Parliament and the Guardian Council. Now, if accepted based on the recent regulations in accordance with Article 25, this issue can be raised again in the Council for review upon the government’s request and with the Leader’s direction.
Iran and FATF warnings
The first FATF warning to Iran was given in 2007, the year the seventh Parliament passed the money laundering law, which was also approved by the Guardian Council. From this year until 2009, Iran received a total of five warnings from the FATF, and in 2009, Iran’s name was raised for the first time in issues related to the FATF. After that, in 2011, the tenth government presented the anti-terrorism financing bill to the Parliament, and this bill was passed in the Parliament, but ultimately rejected by the Guardian Council.
In fact, the first efforts to join this group were raised during Ahmadinejad’s government, but at that time, few people talked about it. It seems that during Ahmadinejad’s era, this issue was quietly and secretly pursued. A subject that became popular after Ahmadinejad’s presidency ended. Ghasem Mirzaee Nikoo, a former Parliament member, said in an interview that during the previous era, individuals like Jalili and Ahmadinejad and others were working on the FATF and had it in their program and were trying to get it approved.
Saeed Jalili, the then Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, at that time, called for Iran to join this financial group and in 2011, in a letter, declared joining the FATF necessary. After that, Jalili, with the coming to power of Hassan Rouhani’s government, became an opponent of this decision, and of course, this change of stance was also observed in figures like Ahmadinejad. It seems that Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Ahmad Jannati, Mohsen Rezaee, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Hossein Mozaffar, Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, Ahmad Vahidi, Parviz Davoodi, and Saeed Jalili were the nine opponents of the FATF in the Expediency Discernment Council, whose recent statements show no change of stance, but ultimately, its return to the Council and the government’s effort to persuade may bring about a change.
In the three years of Ebrahim Raisi’s government, there was a special emphasis that the government had no intention of making such a decision and would not pursue it. Now, again, a government has come to power that aims to remove obstacles for connecting with the world, and this time, people, being aware of the background of these individuals and with the clear explanations of Pezeshkian as a candidate in the fourteenth presidential election in this regard, voted for him.
At this juncture, where again such issues form a bipolar division of supporters and opponents, the question that comes to many of our minds can be how, if people want to pursue certain issues at a macro level, should they act? Naturally, changes in policies and decisions in democratic societies are possible with elections and selecting a reformist option. However, now in the country, we see that despite the presence of the republican wing and the words of the late Leader of the Revolution that the people’s vote is the criterion and the Leader’s words on the right to determine fate, now in various subjects, despite the people’s desire and vote for change and reform, the hardline opposition is trying to prevent reform programs and practically label these efforts as serving Israel and rendering the government ineffective and a matter of pride.
In other words, by politicizing the FATF, which experts present in the government do not consider joining it a mistake, they are trying to add this issue to the existing taboos in governance and probably, with this assumption, reduce the communication channels with the world to less than what they are.
