This comes while after a meeting of its members in Paris on October 19, the FATF gave Iran four months – until February – to implement reforms in its laws and make them compliant with the regulations of the intergovernmental organization.

FATF was founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – to develop policies to combat money laundering. It has 37 members.

During 2007-2016, Iran was constantly on the organization’s blacklist. As of 2009, the FATF began announcing this issue officially in its statements, calling on countries to exercise caution in their financial and banking transactions with the Islamic Republic.

At that time, the then Iranian government put removing the country from the FATF’s blacklist on its agenda and took the issue to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to further discuss it. In 2010, it developed a roadmap titled ‘The Roadmap of the Anti-Money Laundering High Council,’ which was approved later, to begin implementing its reform plans.

These efforts resulted in the preparation of two bills: One on fighting money laundering and the other on combating the financing of terrorism (CFT), which were eventually passed recently after many ups and downs. It was due to the passing of the bill on CFT that the Iranian delegation managed to persuade the FATF’s board of governors to suspend Iran from its blacklist in July 2016.

Although bills on Iran’s joining the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and reforming the country’s anti-money laundering laws have been passed by Parliament, they have not yet obtained final approval to become laws.

The FATF Plenary and Working Group meetings was held during October 14-19 at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, attended by over 800 representatives from various countries and international bodies.

Acknowledging Iran’s progress in implementing the organization’s action plan on the last day of the meetings, FATF extended the deadline for another four months, until February 2019, for Tehran to complete the remaining required reforms.

The Paris-based international group said Tehran had acted on only nine out of 10 of its guidelines despite pledges to make the grade, calling on the country to adopt all of these measures prior to the expiration of the deadline.

Commenting on this issue, Yonathan Betkolia, an Iranian lawmaker who maintains that it is in Iran’s interest to join the FATF, told Iran Daily that the FATF is an international organization and that Iran has never had any fear of joining international bodies, always welcoming membership in them.

At present, he added, most countries have accepted joining the FATF to safeguard their interests.

Betkolia said even Syria and Lebanon have become members of the organization.

“When all these states have joined the FATF, why shouldn’t we be a member of the organization?”

He said many of the present-day human achievements were not possible in the absence of Iran’s ancient civilization, adding people belonging to different religions have always lived with each other peacefully in the country.

“We have shown to the world that Iran is a peaceful and united country. We have never invaded any other state unless we have been attacked by other aggressors and have had to defend ourselves against invaders. Thus, we have never supported war and violence.”

He said there is nothing scary about joining the FATF as “we will lose nothing if we become a member of the organization”.

Commenting on those inside the country who are against Iran’s membership in the international group, the Iranian MP added some people deal with this issue based on their personal preferences.

He urged greater unity among Iranians at the present critical time, calling on every one to give priority to safeguarding national interests when making a move or decision.

“Everybody observed that all countries sided with Iran in the UN Security Council meeting in September, which was chaired by the US, and that in October, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the US to ease sanctions it reimposed on Iran [after it abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed between Iran and P5+1 in July 2015, on May 8].”

He said all these took place thanks to the Iranian government’s measures and policies in the international arena, adding, “I believe that the Leader [of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] also approves of all these moves and measures. I maintain that the leader approves of Iran’s membership in the FATF as, otherwise, on the same day that the issue of joining the FATF was being discussed [in Parliament] the head of the Leader’s office would not have written a letter to Parliament speaker [Ali Larijani] stating that any decision [on the issue] by the legislative body is respected. I believe that these moves caused Parliament to pass the bill on joining the FATF.”

The MP added, “If we fail to join the FATF, those countries that are close to us will inevitably face problems for conducting transactions with our country, failing to transfer money to Iran.”

At present, he said, countries such as India, China and Russia are cooperating with Iran, adding that in case the Islamic Republic did not join the FATF, they would have to lower the level of their collaborations with Iran.

Commenting on Iran’s membership in the FATF in a separate interview with Iran Daily, Mohammad Khodabakhshi, another Iranian lawmaker who had voted against Iran’s joining the international organization, said, “We are not against joining international treaties. However, I personally believe that in order to join international conventions and treaties, we must first evaluate their strong points.”

However, he added, the membership conditions of these conventions are in a way that there may be differences between “our opinions and those of their members”.

Khodabakhshi said Iran has, so far, approved 40 out of the total 41 FATF recommendations.

He added, “If we use our domestic capacities optimally, the country would be able to tread the path of development much better. However, if we solely pin our hopes on international assistance we would not succeed.”