Iranian official: Iran to continue its push for removal from FATF blacklist

Head of Iran’s financial crime agency says the country will continue to push the global money laundering watchdog FATF to remove it from its blacklist despite a recent statement by the body saying it would keep the designation.

Tehran - ISNA - Hadi Khani said on Saturday that the reason the Financial Action Task Force had kept Iran on its blacklist was because it had rejected one of Iran’s conditions to fully implement the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, also known as the Palermo Convention.

Khani, who also serves as a deputy finance minister, said the FATF had accepted Iran’s other reservations about the Palermo Convention during its recent meetings in Paris, where Iran was represented for the first time in six years.

In a statement issued on Friday, the FATF welcomed Iran's re-engagement with the body and its efforts to address issues related to money laundering and terrorism financing.

However, it said that Iran would remain on the FATF High Risk Jurisdictions Subject to a Call for Action blacklist because it had failed to accept the Palermo Convention in its entirety.

However, Khani, said that Iran and the FATF will continue their expert discussions to reach a solution on the issue.

The FATF is an international coalition for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, which is headquartered in Paris. It blacklisted Iran in 2020 because it had failed to adopt the Palermo Convention and the 1999 UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT).

Iran said in May that it had conditionally approved the Palermo Convention. That came after several years of heated debates in the country and amid fears that joining the convention might undermine Iran’s financial independence.

Iran also gave its conditional approval to the CFT in early October, and the FATF is expected to discuss the development in its upcoming meetings./isna