TEHRAN – The Guardian Council will not confirm legislation to join the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as it is contrary to the constitution, the council’s spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaei said on Saturday.

Iran’s presidential chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi said in June that the Rouhani administration is not trying to join the FATF.

The FATF is a set of measures designed to make financial affairs transparent and verifiable.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on June 20 that parliament should pass legislation to combat money laundering according to its own criteria.

“As we have stated about some ‘international conventions recently raised in the Majlis,’ the Islamic Consultative Assembly, which is cultivated, matured and prudent, must make laws independently on issues such as combating terrorism or battling money-laundering,” the leader.ir quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as saying.

A number of principlist Iranian lawmakers, who are members of the Velayat (rule of jurisprudence) faction, issued a statement on June 9 calling on other fellow parliamentarians not to approve the FATF as the U.S. pullout from the nuclear agreement has put the fate of the accord in disarray.

The statement said since the U.S. intends to impose “crippling” sanctions on Iran an approval of the FATF will pave the way for the U.S. to get access to all the economic and banking transactions by Iran.

The FATF announced in June that the organization will continue suspension of counter-measures against Iran by October 2018.

NA/PA