🇷🇺🇺🇸 Ambassador Anatoly Antonov's answer to a media question

❓: Dear Ambassador, how could you comment on the statement of US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on the decision of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) taken on February 24 at a meeting in Paris to suspend the membership of the Russian Federation in that organization?

💬Anatoly Antonov: The Secretary of the Treasury is apparently rubbing her hands at the implementation of a frankly politicized initiative within the framework of a purely technical, by its mandate, multilateral forum. All of it looks unprofessional and irresponsible.

The US administration refuses to understand that the suspension of Russia's participation in the FATF is a dangerous step that actually leads to the erosion of the global architecture to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

👉It turns out that any member of the FATF, for the sake of Washington's opportunistic needs, can be «squeezed» out of the Organization and deprived of the opportunity to make a useful contribution to collective efforts to ensure international security. Russia for 20 years of membership in the group has done a lot to promote effective standards in the field of combating criminal proceeds. The United States is well aware of it as well as of the fact that we have created one of the most advanced national «anti-money laundering» systems. The FATF’s Mutual Evaluation Review proved this in 2019. The US experts who were part of it can confirm this fact.

☝️It is obvious to the international community that Washington is ready to sacrifice the well-being and stability of humanity in order to trivially and frenziedly settle an old score with Russia.