The parliament has been reviewing three FATF-related bills, including the bill on amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering Law, the bill on amendment to the Law of Combating the Financing of Terrorism, and the bill of "Accession of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.”
While the first two bills have been passed by relative ease, the third bill has caused much controversy among the lawmakers who are at odds with Foreign Ministry on the country’s accession to the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.
Today’s parliament session on reviewing the bill followed another one held on May 20, in which Zarif and Araghchi from the Foreign Ministry spoke in favor of the bill, citing it as a step forward to expand economic cooperation with EU.
On the other hand, the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, which was in charge of reviewing the bill within three months before the bill could be put to vote at the Parliament, did not submit its final decision in due time, citing the bill’s inconsistency with Article 3 of Iran’s Constitution, as well as its ‘colonial’ nature.
Following lawmakers’ protests at today’s session over the evaluation of the bill, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called on lawmakers to vote on returning the bill to the Security Commission for further assessment.
Of 245 parliament members present, 136 MPs voted in favor of returning the bill to the Security Commission, while 92 voted against and 6 abstained.
Some lawmakers are concerned that Iran’s accession to the bill will give US a chance to file a complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice for supporting Hezbollah.
At Sunday’s closed session, Minister of Foreign Affairs Zarif tried reassure the lawmakers that adopting the bill would not cause any problems for Iran’s support to the Resistance groups; some MPs told Mehr News that Zarif’s arguments were not convincing enough.
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