Saturday, February 16, 2008

Iran shrugs off secret US meeting

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's economy minister on Saturday downplayed a secret meeting last month between U.S. and Iranian banking officials, calling it "an exchange of views" over the Islamic nation's new money laundering law.

The minister, Davoud Danesh Jafari, said the rare encounter was not special, included no senior officials and amounted to the U.S. interested in talking about the new Iranian law.

"There was an exchange of views," Jafari told reporters in Tehran.

Andrew DeSouza, a U.S. Treasury Department spokesman, said the Jan. 24 meeting between the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, and the Iranian delegation was to discuss "Iran's noncompliance with international standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing."..........

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