New Developments in the FATF Game; Review of Bills in the Specialized Commissions of the Expediency Council Begins

The spokesperson for the Expediency Council announced the start of "expert review" of the bills for Iran's accession to the Convention on Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and the Palermo Convention in the specialized commissions of this body. This comes despite Ali Khamenei's implicit request in 2018 to set aside the bills for joining these conventions, urging the parliament to independently legislate on money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. On Sunday, January 13, ISNA reported that Mohsen Dehnavi stated that various provisions of the mentioned bills are currently being discussed and subject to technical and expert reviews. The website "Shargh Online" also reported that the Deputy Minister of Economy in the Rouhani government mentioned that "besides Iranian individuals, many citizens of other countries friendly to the U.S., who are also main members of the FATF, are on the U.S. Treasury's sanctions list, and FATF has not addressed these types of sanctions so far." Previously, with the renewed debate on Iran's accession to the FATF, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the head of the Expediency Council, stated in 2020 that "political maneuvering should not overshadow it." The implementation of the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the effort to remove Iran's name from the blacklist of this international body returned to the forefront of news following a letter from Masoud Pezeshkian to Ali Khamenei. Some experts believe that with the Expediency Council's involvement, Khamenei has issued a "green light" for joining the FATF, while others argue that the "Supreme Leader" has shifted the responsibility to the Council to avoid accountability. This is despite Khamenei's earlier request to set aside the bills for joining these conventions and his call for the parliament to independently legislate on money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism. He later delegated this matter to the "relevant authorities," effectively transferring the responsibility for rejecting these bills to his appointees in the Guardian Council and the Expediency Council. At that time, the Guardian Council opposed the approval of these bills, and the Expediency Council was unable to reach a consensus on them after more than a year. The FATF is an international intergovernmental organization established by the G7 countries in Paris to focus on development policies to combat money laundering. In 2001, it joined the fight against the financing of terrorism, and in 2012, combating the financing of proliferation activities was added to its mission. Iran is on the FATF's blacklist due to its opaque structures and controversial international activities, including support for groups recognized as terrorist organizations by many countries, making financial transactions with Iran considered "high-risk."