Page 11 - IRANRptNov19

(announced that it would enrich uranium over 3.67%) and promised to reduce obligations every 60 days if other participants did not adhere to the agreements reached.
On September 6, Iran embarked on a third phase to reduce obligations under a nuclear deal and abandoned restrictions on research activities.
2.5 ​Financial Action Task Force gives Iran final deadline to pass dirty money bills
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog, said on October 18 it has given Iran a final deadline of February 2020 to comply with international money laundering norms and measures to prevent the financing of terrorism. ​If that deadline is breached, FATF members would be advised to apply counter-measures, it added.
Paris-based FATF said members should in the meantime demand scrutiny of transactions with Iran along with stricter external auditing of financing firms operating in the country.
“If before February 2020, Iran does not enact the Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions in line with the FATF Standards, then the FATF will fully lift the suspension of counter-measures and call on its members and urge all jurisdictions to apply effective counter-measures, in line with recommendation 19,” it said in a statement.
Compliance with FATF rules should be a big factor in Iran attracting foreign investors, although the incentive for Iran to get to that point has greatly fallen since the US reimposed heavy sanctions on Tehran last year that have served to drive investors away from the Islamic Republic.
Hardliners in Iran have argued that passing legislation for joining the FATF could complicate the support Iran provides allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Tehran’s own action plan to meet with the FATF requirements, implemented in 2016, expired in January 2018.
“The FATF expresses its disappointment that the Action Plan remains outstanding,” the watchdog said. “The FATF expects Iran to proceed swiftly in the reform path to ensure that it addresses all of the remaining items by completing and implementing the necessary Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing reforms.”
Last October,​ ​Iran’s parliament approved four bills​ ​put forward by the government to meet standards set by the FATF. However, in November the all-powerful Guardian Council rejected​ ​drafted legislation for the law.
"The Guardian Council has in several sessions reviewed the bill... and it has considered it to have flaws and ambiguities," wrote a spokesman for the Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaie, on Twitter.
11​ IRAN Country Report​ November 2019 www.intellinews.com