A Member of the Expediency Council Says the Government Has Not Sent a Letter Regarding the FATF

A member of the Expediency Council stated that the government of Massoud Pezeshkian has not yet sent a letter regarding the FATF, the Financial Action Task Force, to this council. Mostafa Mir-Salim said on Tuesday, October 8, in an interview with ILNA news agency regarding the possibility of the FATF being approved by the council: "We have not had any meetings in the past two years to discuss this matter; first, the government must come and present its arguments, and then we will make a decision." These remarks come as Mohammad Jafar Qaim-Panah, the Executive Deputy and Head of the Presidential Office, stated on October 3 that the government of Massoud Pezeshkian had sent a letter requesting a reconsideration of the controversial FATF case to the Expediency Council. Additionally, Massoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, mentioned in his first press conference that he would definitely write a letter to the Expediency Council to reactivate the FATF case. In response to the question of what the main obstacle to the approval of the FATF is, Mostafa Mir-Salim said: "The problem is only about the sanctions, and if the sanctions are lifted, we have no issues; in fact, we are stricter than the FATF itself." Previously, Massoud Pezeshkian had stated: "We have no choice but to resolve the FATF issue; we must solve it." He added: "If we can resolve the FATF and the JCPOA and improve our relations with the world, we can achieve the goals of the 20-Year Vision Document [known as Vision 1404]." Furthermore, Ghorbanali Daryanajafabadi, another member of the Expediency Council, also expressed ignorance about Massoud Pezeshkian's letter to the council regarding the reconsideration of the FATF. Meanwhile, in recent days, government officials have reported efforts to convince the representatives of the Expediency Council regarding the acceptance of the FATF. Abdolnaser Hemmati, the Minister of Economy, recently stated: "The President has ordered that necessary actions to lift restrictions within the framework of the national interests of the country be pursued; and simultaneously, concerns and worries in this regard should be addressed through cooperation between economic institutions and the Supreme National Security Council." Alireza Salimi, the spokesperson of the Parliament's presiding board, also stated: "Considering that the time for bills such as Palermo and CFT has expired, these bills must be sent to the Parliament and reviewed by the Parliament." The Financial Action Task Force, abbreviated as FATF, is a mechanism that provides guidelines for combating money laundering, and countries must join it for financial transactions. Iran's presence on this group's blacklist since 2007 has been an obstacle for international financial transactions. The Islamic Republic of Iran was supposed to approve four bills to address strategic deficiencies, including bills to combat transnational organized crime known as Palermo and to combat the financing of terrorism, as well as bills on money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Opponents of the approval of these bills in Iran argue that if they are passed, Iran's financial support to militia groups affiliated with Iran, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, will be jeopardized. Hezbollah is both a militia group and a political party that controls a large part of southern Lebanon and is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States. Members of the Expediency Council had opposed the reconsideration of the FATF bills in 2020, which had been placed on the agenda at the insistence of then-President Hassan Rouhani. Since then, the approval of the guidelines of this mechanism has been stalled due to disagreements between the government and the Expediency Council.