‘US Sanctions to Hurt Even More If Iran Fails to Adopt FATF’

The remarks were made by Iranian Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei in a Saturday piece he published on the Iranian government’s official website.

At the beginning of the piece, he refers to US ambassador to UN Kelly Craft’s short conversation with the Iranian delegation on Thursday, during which she expressed condolences over the death of an Iranian EB child who succumbed to her wounds due to the US sanctions that deprived her of proper dressings and bandages.

The rare meeting came after Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi in a speech condemned the US cruel sanctions against Iranians especially those who have targeted the patients including the EB children.

“On Thursday evening, the story of the two-year-old Iranian girl’s death was narrated to UN Security Council members. Ava, who was suffering from EB, was a butterfly child from the southern city of Ahvaz. EB patients are called butterfly patients because their skin is as fragile as butterflies. These patients’ wounds must be covered with special bandages to prevent infection,” Rabiei wrote.

“Such a narrative led the US ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft to express condolences. A picture of the death of the Ahvazi girl Ava was given to the United Nations, indicating that this is the result of US sanctions.”

“This is the language one should speak to the public opinion of the world with. It is the body language. The body language of a child with EB disease whose skin is so sensitive that it cannot be dressed without the help of special bandages,” Rabiei added.

“Even Human Rights Watch reporter wrote that the ‘excessive adherence’ of banks and pharmaceutical companies to anti-Iran sanctions poses complex obstacles to the financial transactions to buy these drugs,” he added.

“Earlier, BBC showed in a report based on its research and correspondence with a number of major European banks that a new type of ‘Iranophobia’ called ‘financial and banking Iranophobia’ has emerged.”

The Iranian spokesman further complained about the steadfastness of some Iranian authorities who do not let the FATF bills – proposed by the government to take Iran out of the FATF – be approved and Iran join the anti-money laundering body.

“Alongside the silent war that the US is waging against Iranians and pursuing an agenda to pave the ground for the so-called anger and conflict inside the country, there are some people inside Iran, who rather than participating in the programs to stand against sanctions, are fueling the silent war in the name of combating the US,” wrote Rabiei.

“The country’s failure to join the anti-money laundering and FATF conventions will intensify the sanctions regime. That is to say, if we do not choose an anti-sanctions strategy, we will go into a situation where every Iranian could be subject to an inappropriate label, not just by the sanctions, but also by the FATF and anti-money laundering claims, which are also supported by the United Nations.”

Rabiei said, “Ava has been deprived of special wound dressings because the ‘money laundering’ and ‘terrorism’ tags are circulated to put more pressure on each Iranian citizen. The world banks assume they are trading with a terrorist in their most ordinary humanitarian deals with Iranians. Lack of a strategy to foil sanctions is kind of inattention to this procedure and the suffering of citizens.”

“When a group of economists and diplomats including Ali Tayyebnia, Karbassian, Seif, Hemmati, Zarif, Zangeneh, and Dejpasand say not joining the FATF will bring new wounds to Iran, it is our ethical and national duty to avoid labeling ourselves and to remove unnecessary labels from Iran,” he concluded.