UANI Welcomes FATF Decision To Reinstate Iran To Blacklist

(New York, N.Y.) – United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) Chairman Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace released a joint statement today commending the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for reinstating Iran on its “blacklist” alongside North Korea for its failure to fully comply with recommendations that protect the global banking system from terror financing and illicit proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“Today’s decision will have significant repercussions on rogue regimes and immediately enhances the Trump Administration’s maximum pressure campaign. Financing global terrorism or an illicit nuclear program is not normal behavior, and no nation should expect that it can do so and retain access to global banking systems. UANI commends the FATF and calls upon the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) to follow suit by terminating its relationships with all Iranian banks and financial institutions currently connected to that network.”

Despite repeated warnings and ultimatums, Iran has failed to pass key legislation required to come into compliance with the FATF’s recommendations, which has left the regime nearly alone in its failure to do so. Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Chairman of the Iran’s Expediency Council, has called proposed legislation to address FATF recommendations “extremely dangerous” for the country’s national security.

Recalling UANI leadership’s June 2019 warning in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed that the FATF must take action against Iranian banks, “as it has repeatedly promised but failed to do — or risk acquiring a reputation as a toothless tiger,” Lieberman and Wallace also said that the FATF’s decision “demonstrated that the organization is committed to fulfiling its mandate and protecting the integrity of the global banking system.”

UANI has outlined 17 areas where additional action can be taken to strengthen the maximum pressure campaign against Iran – one of which was acted upon in January when the Trump administration sanctioned an international network that was illegally facilitating exports for Iran’s petrochemical industry. Other recommendations include: making greater use of authorities for addressing human rights abuses and corruption in Iran; rescinding the JCPOA’s civil nuclear cooperation waivers; and expanding and tightening sanctions targeting Iran’s primary proxy, Hezbollah.

Since the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, one of the defining hallmarks of the Iranian regime has been its habitual use of terrorism against the United States and its allies throughout the world and its ties to terrorist organizations. In addition to carrying out direct attacks, Iran has committed terrorism by proxy through Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, militias in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and the Gulf and a plethora of other terrorist groups. Iran has a long history of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and other Western countries, carrying out bombings, abductions, and hijackings.

To read Next Steps in the Maximum Pressure Campaign, please click here.

To read Iran: The Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism, please click here.

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