The United States has commended the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) decision to keep Iran on list of countries with weak systems against money laundering and terrorism financing.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, expressed the position of the U.S. in a statement on Friday.
FATF re-imposed countermeasures on Iran which include increased supervision of the foreign branches and subsidiaries of Iranian financial institutions.
Pompeo said Iran must face consequences for its continued failure to abide by international norms, in particular its inaction in ratifying the Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions.
“Since Iran’s FATF action plan expired in 2018, Iran has failed to fulfill its commitments to adhere to the FATF’s anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism standards, including ratifying the UN Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions.
“The regime needs to adhere to the basic standards that virtually every other country in the world agrees to.
“Iran must cease its reckless behavior and act like a normal nation if it wants its isolation to end”, Pompeo noted.
FATF has 39 members and 11 have Iranian banks on their soil, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a U.S.-based research institute.
The countries are France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Malaysia, South Korea, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
