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Turkey to solve shortcomings on battle against terrorist financing
The Finance Ministry’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) will be responsible for conducting studies to change the existing regulations in the battle against financing terrorism in accordance with the relevant directives of the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF). MASAK has already completed a draft bill and presented it for consideration to all the relevant institutions. After receiving the state institutions’ assessments, it will revise the draft accordingly, add the finishing touches and produce the final bill for the upgraded version of the current regulations.
One of the broadest changes introduced by the draft is in the definition of the financing of terrorism. The new definition adopts a universal description of terrorism and discards the existing local perspective by including terrorist activities from around the world in the scope of the fight to curb the financing of terrorism. Additionally, the draft also introduces a mechanism to “freeze the properties” of persons and institutions involved in terrorism. Under this system, the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council will have a determinative effect.
Speaking to the Anatolia news agency on Sunday, a high-ranking official from the Finance Ministry said the regulations lack a similar mechanism at present but the new system will make it possible to freeze the assets of individuals and institutions “if there are strong suspicions about their engagement in terrorism.”
The same source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkey has failed to fully conform to UN resolutions on money laundering and the financing of terrorism although it is a member of this international organization and has its signature on numerous covenants. The draft also includes methods of dealing with requests from other countries regarding the financing of terrorism. A subsection of the draft details how requests from countries should be made asking Turkey take action, how to handle such requests and how to complete the process.
Similarly, the process for Turkey submitting requests to other countries, asking for information and sending requests to freeze the assets of terror-related individuals and institutions are also clearly defined in the new draft.
The Second Progress Report by the FATF after its general assembly in Abu Dhabi earlier this year decided to keep Turkey under the regular follow-up process in the FATF’s second inspection pool, monitoring its attempts to fulfill the requirements regarding financing terrorism and money laundering.
A MASAK official said last month that Turkey is compliant with one out of 16 main standards of the FATF, while it is largely compliant with five and only partly compliant with the remaining 10 standards.
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