Iranian Official Slams EU for Linking INSTEX to CFT

Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council (EC) Mohsen Rezaei decried the European Union’s move to link the implementation of INSTEX –a financial channel for trade with Iran- to Tehran’s accession to Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and the Palermo Convention.

In a post on his Twitter account on Tuesday, Rezaei denounced the EU’s conditional implementation of INSTEX as an act of blackmail.

Describing the INSTEX as a payment channel for trade with Iran, Rezaei said linking the mechanism to CFT and Palermo Convention after such a long delay is tantamount to demanding ransom.

“Europeans must honor their commitments under the JCPOA. They should not set new conditions for us,” he underlined.

On Monday, Council of the European Union issued a conclusion on the Islamic Republic, urging Iran to "adopt and implement the necessary legislation pursuant to its commitments under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Action Plan."

The EU has also voiced readiness to "continue cooperation with Iran in these areas, including by providing technical assistance for the implementation of the FATF Action Plan."

Earlier on Monday, Iranian Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani stressed that the country would never accept the “humiliating conditions” of the European Union’s financial mechanism for trade with Iran, including Iran’s accession to FATF.

“The European countries have reportedly set two ‘strange conditions’ for the mechanism named the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX),” the top judge deplored, saying, “The countries should be aware that Iran will by no means accept these humiliating conditions and will not accede to any demand at the expense of opening a small waterway such as INSTEX.”

INSTEX will be based in Paris and be managed by a German banking expert. Britain will head the supervisory board.

The European countries are reportedly going to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran.

In May 2018, the US president pulled his country out of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal that was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Following the US exit, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord.

source: Tasnim News Agency