BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 2. Iran's comprehensive interests demand the resolution of issues on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said an official of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, Mohammad Sadr, Trend reports.
According to him, the Iranian government should take steps to lift the sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy in order to solve these two issues.
Sadr added that the current government of Iran (which has been in power since August 2021) has realized that these two issues should be settled for the sake of the country.
The official also noted that the current government of Iran initially thought that the JCPOA only favored the other parties and did not give them a fair deal. However, after a year (2022), the Iranian government decided to resume the talks on the nuclear program and made some progress in the meetings related to the nuclear talks.
Sard also pointed out that the Iranian government asked the US side to guarantee that future US governments would stick to the JCPOA. However, the US side rejected this request. This caused the talks to end without a positive outcome.
On January 16, 2016, Iran's nuclear program triggered the creation of the JCPOA between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany). However, on May 8, 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 group (Russia, China, the UK, France, the US, and Germany) and imposed new sanctions against Iran as of November 2018.
Iran has been seeking various ways to restart talks with the other parties on its nuclear issue and revive the JCPOA. The main goals of Iran are to end the sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, access funds frozen abroad, and resume its crude oil exports.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has increased its highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months and currently has 4,745 kilograms of enriched uranium. This is 15 times more than the amount allowed for Iran in the JCPOA.
The objectives of FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory, and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
During the recent FATF meeting, Iran was warned that it may be added to the list of non-cooperative countries within three months if it does not completely fulfill the FATF requirements. Iran fulfilled 37 of the 41 FATF requirements. The remaining four requirements refer to the legislative field.
The amendments to the Counter-Terrorist Financing Act, Anti-Money Laundering Act, Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo), and International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) were prepared by the Iranian government and sent to the parliament.
Although the four conventions have been approved and sent to the Expediency Council of Iran, the CFT and Palermo conventions have not yet been ratified by the Council.
FATF was established in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 Group to combat money laundering. FATF has 37 members, and its secretariat is in Paris.
Iran was included in the FATF blacklist in 2007. The anti-Tehran steps have been taken since 2009. Thus, the countries were cautious in their financial and banking transactions with Iran.
Taking reciprocal steps against Iran through diplomatic means has been postponed since 2016. FATF included Iran on the blacklist again on February 21, 2020.
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