Cablegate: Rokg Reaction to Fatf Guidance

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OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHUL #2168 3102223
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 052223Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY SEOUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2222
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SEOUL 002168

SIPDIS

STATE TO ISN, T, TREASURY, NEA, INR, EEB, S/CT, INL

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EFIN KNNP KS PARM
SUBJECT: ROKG REACTION TO FATF GUIDANCE

REF: STATE 115523

(SBU) Per reftel guidance, on November 4 Econoff called on
MOFAT's Sang Soo Lee, Deputy Director of the Disarmament and
Nonproliferation Division, to encourage the ROKG to take
action in line with the recent Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) guidelines concerning UNSCR 1803 implementation and
Iran's AML/CTF regime. On the subject of Australia's October
15 statement on Iran, Lee revealed that the Australian
Embassy had approached him prior to its issuance and
requested that the ROKG follow suit. While Lee told the
Australians that the ROKG would consider it, he confided to
Econoff that there was little chance of anything occurring.
Lee commented that the current Korean legal basis related to
counterproliferation makes it difficult to act beyond UNSCRs.
While the ROK does have domestic laws that can be used for
terrorism-related cases there are no similar domestic
authorities to invoke for counterproliferation cases.

(SBU) Econoff also delivered the demarche to the Ministry of
Strategy and Finance's Foreign Exchange Policy Division on
November 5. Deputy Director Jung stated that she prefers to
wait until after the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU)
performs an evaluation of the UNSCR 1803 implementation
guidance to discuss. The FIU told Econoff that it has no
position until it finishes the evaluation on November 14.
(Econoff will schedule meetings to follow up).
STEPHENS

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