NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) today expressed concern about reports that the Obama Administration is preparing to allow Iran access to the U.S. financial system. The Associated Press has reported that “the Obama administration is leaving the door open to new sanctions relief for Iran, including possibly long-forbidden access to the U.S. financial market,” specifically granting “Iranian businesses the ability to conduct transactions in dollars within the United States or through offshore banks.”
According to an op-ed by Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer in The Wall Street Journal, “until Congress can get the intelligence community to verify that Iranian banks have stopped financing terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas—not to mention money laundering and other financial crimes—you can bet that Congress will oppose Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system.”
Said UANI CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace and UANI Chairman Senator Joseph I. Lieberman:
We are deeply concerned by reports that the Administration is preparing to permit Tehran access to America’s financial and commercial markets.
U.S. officials have previously pledged that Iran would not be granted access to the U.S. financial system and the ability to “dollarize” payments.
Lifting this restriction would violate Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which designates the entire Iranian financial sector as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern. It also ignores recent notices of the international anti-money laundering and terror-finance watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which warn of Iran’s “failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.”
This move would also undercut the Administration’s actions last week to charge Iranians for engaging in cyber attacks against the U.S. financial sector and critical infrastructure, as well as sanctioning individuals and entities supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program and on-going terrorism campaign.
We call on the Administration to continue to deny Iran access to the American financial system and dollar transactions.
Following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), UANI has been engaged in an international campaign warning companies worldwide about the substantial legal, financial, and reputational risks of doing business in Iran. As part of the launch, UANI released an open letter detailing the many hazards that business with Iran could trigger, signed by dozens of prominent defense and foreign policy experts.
Signatories include former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, former Acting and Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Senators Kit Bond and Norm Coleman, Ambassador Dennis Ross, and former National Security Advisor to the Vice President John Hannah, among others. The letter calls on the global business community to fully consider the potentially grave consequences of business ties to Iran, citing a host of risks.
