President Hassan Rouhani's chief of staff has denied recent claims by selected news outlets that the government for politically motives intentionally allows increase in foreign exchange rates.
"When forex rates climb pressure builds on the government … the government does not play with people's livelihoods and the countries' resources," Mahmoud Vaezi told reporters on the sidelines of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Some analysts, in particular opponents of the government, claim that it is the government that lets forex rates rise “to create crisis-like conditions and by extension pressure the Expediency Council to approve the long-pending FATF-related bills.
Vaezi rejected such claims are politically-motivated and stressed that the government favors a stronger national currency.
"We use logic for approving Palermo bill and do not believe in ways some claim simply because they never work," the presidential aide said.
After relative calm since the US re-imposed oil and banking sanctions last November, the rial's fall accelerated since the beginning of 2019 with the US dollar being traded above the psychological barrier of 130,000 rials.
While the government insists that failure to meet FATF criteria will disrupt Iran's foreign exchange transactions, opponents reject this position claiming that more transparency in financial matters would result in greater vulnerability to the hostile US sanctions.
The Expediency Council refused for a third time on Saturday to come up with a definitive vote on Iran's accession to the UN Convention on Transnational Crime, commonly known as the Palermo bill.
Palermo bill is one of four government bills that seek to bring Iran's anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism standards in line with international norms, specifically those defined by the global Financial Action Task Force.
The Expediency Council is the constitutional arbiter between the Majlis and the Guardian Council in charge of vetting legislation based on conformity with the Islamic Republic Constitution and Sharia law.
