Iran’s Expediency Council has agreed to conditionally join a United Nations convention aimed at preventing and criminalizing the financing of terrorism, the body’s spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“After holding four public sessions and joint commission meetings, the Expediency Council agreed in today’s session for Iran to join the CFT convention on a conditional basis,” Mohsen Dehnavi wrote on X.
The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), adopted by the United Nations in 1999, is designed to prevent and criminalize the financing of terrorist activities worldwide.
Iran's Expediency Council, overseen by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, mediates disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, a hard-line body that vets laws and candidates.
The move comes just days after UN sanctions on Iran were reinstated on September 28.
In April, over 150 hardline lawmakers urged the Council to reject the convention.
In a letter to Expediency Council chairman Sadegh Amoli Larijani, they argued that any approval—conditional or not—should wait until the risk of the reimposition of UN triggered by the snapback mechanism is entirely eliminated.
In May, the Council conditionally approved the country’s accession to the Palermo Convention, one of the two key legislative items tied to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards aimed at addressing money laundering and terrorism financing.
An annual US State Department report last December, called Iran the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism for the 39th year running, accusing Tehran of using its allied armed groups to destabilize the Middle East.
