Larijani and Rouhani to Meet with Ayatollah Khamenei Regarding FATF

A few days after the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic explicitly opposed Iran's accession to the FATF, Mohammad Ali Vakili, a member of the Parliament's presiding board, announced that the President and the Speaker of Parliament would meet with Ayatollah Khamenei in the coming days on this matter. According to Mohammad Ali Vakili, the Parliament has not yet made a definitive decision about removing this bill from its agenda. Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, stated on June 30 during a meeting with Parliament representatives that there is no need for Iran to accept things that we do not know what they entail or even know that they have problems, just for the sake of their positive aspects. Opponents of joining the FATF, who are mainly opponents of President Hassan Rouhani's government, considered the Supreme Leader's remarks as a definitive statement and called for the dismissal of the government's four bills regarding this issue. Previously, the Parliament had suspended discussions on these bills for two months. The Hassan Rouhani government is seeking to join the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Convention on the Financing of Terrorism, amend the Anti-Money Laundering Law, and amend the Counter-Terrorism Financing Law to prevent Iran from being placed on the FATF blacklist. On Sunday, Mohammad Ali Vakili announced the upcoming meeting of the heads of the Parliament and the Executive Branch with Ayatollah Khamenei, stating: 'Our interpretation of the Leader's remarks was not an absolute opposition; rather, we understood that he believes the FATF has positive points and that the Parliament should legislate based on the country's considerations, and it was certainly not interpreted that he wanted the removal of this bill from the Parliament's agenda.' This member of the presiding board added: 'We should not give our enemies an excuse to put Iran on the FATF blacklist and expand the scope of sanctions against the Iranian people.' Opposition to the approval of the four bills was not limited to representatives opposing the government in Parliament. Recently, representatives received threatening text messages, most of which, according to Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, were from Mashhad. Meanwhile, Ahmad Alamolhoda, the representative of the Supreme Leader in Razavi Khorasan, warned representatives during the Eid al-Fitr prayers, drawing inspiration from the assassination of Hassan Ali Mansour, the then Prime Minister of Iran, not to be listed among the 'country-sellers' by approving these bills. In response to Ahmad Alamolhoda's remarks, Mahmoud Sadqi, a representative from Tehran, tweeted: 'Who should be held accountable for the damaging behaviors of those who prevent transparency in banking transactions?!' This member of Parliament emphasized that 'one of the habitats of the seven-headed dragon of corruption is the opaque banking network. Many of them also hail from Khorasan.' According to the Basel Institute's ranking in 2017, Iran, alongside Afghanistan, has been among the top 10 countries at risk for money laundering and terrorism financing for five consecutive years. While the review of Iran's accession to the FATF has currently reached a deadlock in Parliament, Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Parliament, stated to reporters one day after Ayatollah Khamenei's opposition that he would discuss this matter with the Supreme Leader.