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| Arabia |
| Arab Leaders Agree on Terror Fund Watchdog |
| 2004-07-03 |
| Middle Eastern and north African states have agreed to set up a regional body to combat money laundering and terror financing, a senior Bahraini official said Friday. Sheikh Ibrahim bin Khalifa al-Khalifa, an undersecretary at Bahrain's Finance Ministry, said the new body would be based in Bahrain and launched at an inaugural ministerial meeting in November. Al-Khalifa spoke in Paris, where officials from Arab states held talks on the margins of a meeting of the international Financial Action Task Force on money laundering and terror financing. The planned new organization, referred to as the Middle East-North Africa FATF, will be a "regional subdivision" of the global watchdog, al-Khalifa said. It will promote the same standards and best practices for tackling criminal and terror financing, he added. Al-Khalifa said the new organization has received political backing from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco have signaled their support without making a final commitment. "All of them have expressed readiness to fund and support this body," he said. A new executive secretary will be appointed at the November meeting to head the regional watchdog, Al-Khalifa added, while its presidency and vice-presidency will rotate annually among the member countries. The announcement came as the Paris-based FATF urged Saudi Arabia to tighten up laws and controls on financial transfers and speed up cooperation with international investigations. In a report published Friday at the end of a three-day meeting, the global watchdog said Saudi Arabia already complies with "almost" all of the its guidelines but called for improvements in key areas. |
| Posted by:Fred |