Top MP asks President Pezeshkian to facilitate Iran’s accession to FATF

The head of the Iranian Parliament’s Planning and Budget Committee has called on President Massoud Pezeshkian to pave the rocky path for Iran’s accession to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) money-laundering watchdog.

In an interview with IRNA news agency on Wednesday, Gholamreza Tajgardoon said he believes that the accession to the Paris-based Western-dominated watchdog can facilitate Iran’s international trade, which is currently on life support amid harsh sanctions.

“Our joining the FATF will make our banking transactions easier, and as a result, our businessmen will experience better conditions in this regard,” he said.

Iran’s relationship with the FATF has been complex and politically sensitive due to internal and external pressures.

Rightist politicians in Iran believe that adopting FATF standards, that “develop policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing,” will hand over a considerable part of the country’s financial system to the West.

Pezeshkian, who won the presidential office on a reformist platform, stressed in his first press conference on Monday that Iran has no choice but to join the task force.

“I will definitely write a letter to the Expediency Council to raise the issue of the FATF again so that we can solve it and it must be solved,” he told domestic and foreign reporters.

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