Financial Monitoring Service hails Azerbaijan’s fight against terrorism financing
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Azerbaijan carries out systemic measures to counter financing of terrorism, the country’s Financial Monitoring Service (FMS) has said.
“The government is carrying out systematic measures - legislative acts are being adopted, new projects are being implemented, supervision is being strengthened,” local media cited a source within the service as saying.
The FMS also said that the assessment of the Council of Europe expert group – MONEYVAL - on Azerbaijan’s fight against terrorist financing and the legalization of money and other property obtained as a result of criminal activity, is possible no earlier than 2021.
“We have not received accurate information from MONEYVAL regarding the fifth round of the assessment. Most likely, the assessment is not planned for 2020. Otherwise, we would have been notified about this,” FSA said.
It should be noted that during the fourth round of assessment of Azerbaijan’s fight against terrorism financing and legalization of money and other property obtained as a result of criminal activity, heard in MONEYVAL’s 57th meeting in 2018, the expert group had hailed Azerbaijan’s performance. It was noted that Azerbaijan had successfully fulfilled all the obligations assigned to it by MONEYVAL. Reforms in this area have also been praised. Thus, Azerbaijan’s activities in combating the financing of terrorism and money laundering were positive.
MONEYVAL was established in 1997 as a subcommittee of the European Committee of the Council of Europe on Crime Problems (CDPC). The purpose of the Committee is to develop effective systems to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the member states of the Council of Europe.
The plenary meetings of the Committee are usually held three times a year. MONEYVAL also organizes events aimed at sharing expertise in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing (seminars on typologies) and training assessors to participate in mutual evaluation missions (training seminars).
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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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