ROKG REACTION TO FATF GUIDANCE

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