Misbahi Moghadam: After FATF Approval, We Cannot Create Cover Companies

A number of Friday prayer leaders, including the Friday prayer leader of Tehran, have opposed bills related to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) regulations for the umpteenth time, and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council stated that with the approval of these bills, creating cover companies to circumvent sanctions will become impossible. According to ISNA news agency, Kazem Sedighi, the Friday prayer leader of Tehran, said in his sermon on March 8: 'Some said that both the centrifuges must spin and the lives of the people must go on, but today we see that neither has spun and both have suffered damage.' Hassan Rouhani had stated during the 2013 presidential election campaign that both 'the centrifuges must spin and the lives of the people must go on.' Mr. Sedighi emphasized at the end of his remarks: 'I am sensitive about FATF and it is not the right path for our country.' Meanwhile, Gholamreza Misbahi Moghadam, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, spoke against these bills in a speech before the Friday prayer sermon in Tehran. He emphasized: 'In a sanctions situation, it is not appropriate to provide the economic information of the country to the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia.' According to Mr. Misbahi Moghadam, Iran must create 'cover companies inside and outside the country' to circumvent sanctions, and by joining these conventions, 'must refrain from such transactions.' The Expediency Discernment Council on Saturday, March 2, failed to reach a conclusion for the fourth time regarding the Palermo bill, and voting on this bill has been postponed to next year. Meanwhile, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, a member of the Hope faction in parliament, stated on March 3: 'According to our information, the Expediency Discernment Council's vote on Palermo is negative.' Earlier, some websites reported that the government had requested the Expediency Discernment Council to postpone the potential rejection of the Palermo bill until after the Nowruz holidays so that this issue would not affect prices during the Nowruz period. The Financial Action Task Force, FATF, on Friday, February 22, announced that Iran's suspension from the group's blacklist would be extended until June, four more months. This group has given the Islamic Republic of Iran four opportunities to pass laws and comply with international standards to be removed from its blacklist. Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, also stated in his sermon on March 8 that anyone who deviates from the recent statement of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is a traitor to the emergence of Imam Mahdi. He added: 'The leadership has specified the last step, which is to prepare for the rise of the great Wilayat.' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, stated in a statement on the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Revolution that the Islamic Revolution is 'flexible and ready to correct its mistakes but is not prone to reconsideration and passivity.' Abolfazl Ghadiani, a political activist, described this statement, like other statements and speeches by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as 'full of slogans, generalizations, tedious repetitions, and astonishing lies about freedom, spirituality, social justice, and ethics.'