“FATF cannot and should not enter into a sphere where certain world powers use every tool at their disposal to score political points”

The Financial Action Task Force – an international antimoney laundering group – will hold its regular plenary meeting in Paris on February 18 to consider, among other items on its agenda, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s progress report on implementing an action plan to improve its antimoney laundering and combating the financing of terrorism system.

Under the action plan agreed upon in June 2016, Iran committed itself to enforce a set of tough standards in its entire financial and banking system within 18 months. At the end of the timeline, FATF, in its upcoming meeting, should decide whether measures taken by Iran are satisfactory enough for the group to fully delist the country from its noncooperative list.

There are clear indications that an absolute majority of FATF members are convinced by Iran’s progress report and would lend their support to a favourable conclusion for the country.

However, the administration of US President Donald Trump is working hard to influence what is supposed to be a technical decision by this multilateral body.

On January 25, Edward Royce, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US House of Representatives, penned an official letter to the US Secretary of Treasury, with a copy dispatched to the Secretary of State, in which he appreciated the Treasury Department’s efforts “to use sanctions and other tools of financial pressure” against Iran.

The letter also stated that “the tools available through the Financial Action Task Force must remain a key part of this effort”.

Royce did not progress report, refer to the hundreds of pages of Iran’s as well as five rounds of technical discussions in the last two years held jointly between Iranian representatives and many experts from across the world, many of whom were American.

The congressman also did not bother to ask his fellow American experts, who were part of the US delegation, about their technical assessment of Iran’s progress in implementing the technical items in the action plan. Royce has his own political agenda to pursue beyond what the legal and financial experts follow within their mandated tasks.

Back in mid-2014, I co-authored an article in which I argued that the FATF decision to categorise Iran as noncooperative was neither fair nor constructive. I argued that the “objectives of the 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”.

As an advocacy body “which works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas”, FATF cannot and should not enter into a sphere where certain world powers use every tool at their disposal to score political points.

The next plenary meeting in Paris is a real test. Staunch FATF supporters have claimed time and again that politics has no place in the work and the evaluation process of this