February deadline
A global financial watchdog yesterday warned Iran to clamp down on terrorism financing by February or face a deeper squeeze on its sanctions-hit economy.
Tehran, already hurt by a resumption of US sanctions, this month approved a bill to help meet demands imposed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
But nine of the 10 “action plan” items needed to remove Iran from an FATF blacklist have yet to be adopted by Tehran, according to Marshall Billingslea, the US assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing.
“In our plenary, here in Paris, we expressed our disappointment that the majority of the action plan remains outstanding,” said Billingslea, who currently chairs the FATF, told a news conference. “We expect that they will have adopted all these measures by February,” he said.
Billingslea said if measures were not adopted by February next year, the FATF will take further steps to protect against the risks from Iran’s lack of action.
For Iran, access to finance has become particularly pressing since the United States walked out of a 2015 nuclear deal earlier this year and began reimposing sanctions.
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