TEHRAN – Mohsen Rezaee, secretary of the Expediency Council, has said the government is not permitted to join the Palermo Convention.

“The bill to join the Palermo Convention was rejected in the Supreme Supervisory Board because it contradicted with the establishment’s general policies,” Rezaee said in a tweet on Monday.

He further explained that the Guardian Council subsequently recognized the contradiction of the bill with Article 110 of the Islamic Republic’s general policies, which put the fate of the bill on the hands of the Expediency Council.

Since the deadline for making a decision on the bill has passed, the government does not have permission to join the Palermo Convention.

Also on Monday, a member of the Expediency Council said the council has set aside studies to approve the Palermo bill.

“Palermo and CFT will help the United States identify the ways we circumvent the sanctions. We will not tighten sanctions with our own hands,” ISNA quoted Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghadam as saying.

He added, “We are managing the country through circumventing the sanctions. Approval of these two bills is not wise.”

He also said, “The Guardian Council has found faults with this bill and from this council’s point of view, these two bills have not become legal. The Expediency Council has not studied them. So, they are not approved.”

The Financial Action Task Force announced in June that Iran had until October to complete reforms that would bring it into line with global norms or face consequences.

One of the actions Iran is required to take to appease the FATF is joining the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), which is also called the Palermo Convention, a 2000 United Nations-sponsored multilateral treaty against transnational organized crime.

The other action is to ratify the CFT, the convention combatting financing of terrorism.

On October 7, 2018, the parliament voted in favor of the CFT. However, the oversight Guardian Council rejected the bill by finding 22 faults with it.

MH/PA