Lagarde: IMF Policy Toward Iran Unchanged

EghtesadOnline: Pressure from US President Donald Trump to withhold International Monetary Fund and World Bank resources from Iran will not sway the international organization to shift policy regarding allocation of funds to Iran, IMF’s managing director said.

News ID: ۷۴۴۰۸۹

16 October 2017

“We see no reason to change anything in the guidelines that we have received from the [IMF] board and continue to operate in the same manner,” Lagarde also said at a news conference, Business Standard reported.

The IMF chief was responding to a question on the new policy of Trump who has strongly urged the two institutions not to provide loans or funds to Iran.

“We operate with 189 members and we only provide support and enter into program negotiations when a country asks for it,” Financial Tribune quoted her as saying.

Lagarde’s remarks came shortly after Trump’s incendiary remarks on Friday where he said he has no choice but to decertify Iran’s nuclear accord with world powers, but stopped short of pulling the US out of the accord and left it to the US Congress to make amendments to the deal.

The US president’s previous call on IMF and WB had garnered much criticism from Iranian officials and experts who had said he has no right to do so.

“Before we examine Trump’s call, we should ask does the US own the IMF?” Iran’s Economy Minister Masoud Karbasian had reacted some two weeks ago.

“The answer from Iran and the rest of the world to this question is ‘No’,” he said.

As the minister had outlined, the IMF has a clear statute whereby no one is entrusted with making unilateral decisions, therefore Trump’s call was ignored and slammed for its uncalled for interference.