![\"Iran](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/01\/Countering_the_Financing_of_Terrorism-CFT-Iran.jpg\" "\\"Countering_the_Financing_of_Terrorism-CFT-Iran\\"")
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By\u00a0Amir Taghati<\/p>\n
The Iran regime\u2019s parliament is set to discuss Countering the Financing of Terrorism(CFT) bill this week, while the Iranian Expediency Council has begun discussing the Palermo bill, as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) deadline to pass anti-terrorism financing bills draws close.<\/p>\n
Iran will need to pass both these bills in order to comply with international anti-money laundering and terrorism financing laws and standards and evade yet more international sanctions, but they\u2019ve become yet another source of factional infighting within the Regime.<\/p>\n
Those mullahs who are part of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s faction, classed as \u201chardliners\u201d by the West, are worried about the increased action over the bills, which need to be passed in less than a month if Iran hopes to comply with FATF, even resorting to creating a hashtag to oppose the passage of these bills.<\/p>\n
High-profile cleric Hossein Nouri Hamedani said: \u201cFATF is an oppressive treaty and it\u2019s not in the country\u2019s interests to pass it and we can\u2019t keep silent [about that].\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s interesting that he considers additional transparency and not funding terrorists to be outside of Iran\u2019s best interests. This is tantamount to admitting that the Iranian Regime funds terrorism across the Middle East; something they do not want to stop doing.
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif said that huge money laundering networks that benefit the powerful were the reason behind the Khamenei faction\u2019s rejection of FATF, but, while there is no doubt that money laundering is a primary revenue stream for many of Iran\u2019s officials, it is not the only reason. It\u2019s equivalent to pleading guilty to burglary when you\u2019re faced with a murder charge.<\/p>\n
While the President Hassan Rouhani faction, wrongly termed as \u201cmoderates\u201d, is desperate for the FATF bills to pass in order to evade at least some of the sanctions levied by the US after Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year.<\/p>\n
Rouhani ran on a platform of lifting sanctions and normalising Iran\u2019s relations with the rest of the world, but their relations have been anything but normal and he has so far only succeeded in getting nuclear-related sanctions lifted for a small amount of time. If Iran does not pass FATF, then even its close allies will have to stop working with it.<\/p>\n
Laya Joneydi, Rouhani\u2019s legal deputy, said that passing the FATF bill would allow Europe to set up the financial mechanism for evading US sanctions, despite no evidence that this would work as evading the sanctions would be an illegal move by the EU.<\/p>\n
On January 19, Iran\u2019s state-run national television Channel One reported that the Expediency Council was investigating the Palermo bill, but that Council chair Sadegh Amoli Larijani, who is also head of the Iranian judiciary, prevented the bill, which has already gone through Parliament, from being passed to the Council. Larijani wished to challenge previous considerations issued by former Council chair Mahmoud Shahroudi and Parliament\u2019s amendment to the bill.<\/p>\n
The report said: \u201cIn today\u2019s meeting where the foreign minister was also present, members, after expressing their different views, scheduled the rest of the investigations to meetings of the political, defence and judiciary commissions.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, on January 20, the Parliament reiterated its amendment to the Palermo bill and sent the Expediency Council the nine problems that the Guardian Council had found with the CFT bill.<\/p>\n
Of course, there is another reason that Iran would not want to comply with the FATF bills and that is ideology.<\/p>\n
The Regime is founded on the idea of exporting their malign and bloody revolution across the Middle East and eventually the world. To do that, they need terrorists and to get terrorists they need to pay. Iran can\u2019t stop funding terrorists or they\u2019d be admitting that their Regime is not going to last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Amir Taghati The Iran regime’s parliament is set to discuss Countering the Financing of Terrorism(CFT) bill this week, while the Iranian Expediency Council has begun discussing the Palermo bill, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":52650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[178,287],"class_list":{"0":"post-25794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-save","9":"tag-iran-terrorism"},"yoast_head":"\n