TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) should focus on technical reports and avoid any political motivations.

“Based on technical reports, Iran has implemented majority of the technical items and the rest will be implemented after the legal procedure related to the three remaining bills is completed,” Qassemi explained.

“So, it was expected that the FATF would pay attention to these facts and avoid using some negative phrases in its statement,” he added. 

However, he praised the decision by the FATF to continue suspend sanctions on Iran, describing it as another success for Iranian diplomacy.

Qassemi also condemned the U.S. efforts to prevent suspension of sanctions on Iran.

The countries’ technical actions have been the basis for evaluations of the FATF, he stated.

The FATF’s decisions should not be influenced by a certain country’s political pressure, he added.

“The U.S. has proved that it is not a reliable member of the international community and seeks to destroy all the achievements of multilateralism. This important issue should be considered by the FATF,” he said.

The Paris-based FATF said on Friday that Iran had until February to complete reforms that would bring it into line with global norms or face consequences.

The FATF said after a meeting of its members that Tehran had acted on nine out of 10 of its guidelines, according to Reuters.

“We expect Iran to move swiftly to implement the commitments that it undertook at a high level so long ago,” said Marshall Billingslea, the U.S. assistant Treasury Secretary, after chairing an FATF meeting.

“In line with that, we expect that it will have adopted all of these measures by February. If by February 2019 Iran has not yet done so, then we will take further steps,” he said.

NA/PA