| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| U.S. Asks Finance Chiefs to Limit IranÂ’s Access to Banks |
| 2006-09-17 |
| The United States pressed the top finance officials of the world’s leading industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit activities. Mr. Paulson said he had told the finance and economic ministers that the front companies were identified by American intelligence agencies as funneling money to terrororist groups using banks in Europe and elsewhere, many of them “blue chip banks.” Mr. Paulson said that many leading trading companies in Iran with legitimate business operations were also involved in the illicit activities, and that it behooved any legitimate bank to realize that it was risky to continue doing even legitimate business with the companies. He called on banks around the world to be “vigilant” in opposing such risks and to avoid “inadvertently facilitating the kinds of activities that they wouldn’t want to facilitate.” “Iran is a country that has broad, deep and commercial relationships with much of the world that have gone on for some time,” Mr. Paulson told reporters here. “This was nothing more than an educational briefing to prepare financial institutions for dealing with some of the risks that are out there.” He said banks around the world also needed to stop doing business with North Korea, but added that North Korea was already almost entirely isolated from the world’s financial system. By contrast, Iran is still a major player globally. The comments appeared to reflect the emerging Bush administration strategy on Iran as efforts to impose sanctions by the United Nations Security Council have faltered. Last week, in what administration officials call a major escalation in the effort to squeeze Iran economically, the Treasury Department announced that Bank Saderat, a major bank in Iran, would no longer have even indirect access to the United States financial system. Banking experts say that the decree means that Iran will have difficulty selling anything for dollars through Bank Saderat, because any commercial exchange that uses dollars normally obtains them from an American bank. Oil in particularly is always traded in dollars. Many banking experts say the administration may make other banks off-limits soon. After the announcement on Bank Saderat, two senior Treasury officials visited Europe to try to persuade regulators and banks to stop doing business with Bank Saderat and any other banks that are alleged to be involved in illicit activities. Some European banks have already curtailed their activities with Iran, but many leading banks have refused. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #1 Warning shot across the bow. The next step presumably being what they did to banks that have dealings with the Palestinian Authority or with North Korea. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-09-17 13:21 |