Wed, 08-16-2023, PM 5:36 Karrar Al-Asadi 270
The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Ali Al-Alaq, said on Wednesday that his country has made great strides in applying restrictions on the supply of the US dollar, but it is facing an uphill battle in light of a banking system that is not accustomed to strict controland currency smugglers sticking to their activities."It is really a battle because the beneficiaries of this situation and those affected (by the new measures) will try in various ways to continue their illegal activities," he added in an interview with Reuters.
Al-Alaq did not mention Iran by name, and said that he did not have data on the volume of dollars smuggled from Iraq to Iran or any neighboring country, including Turkey and Syria, before the United States tightened the rules in November 2022.
US actions aimed at imposing sanctions on Iran are a sensitive issue in a country that has long been on the front line of the rivalry between Washington and Tehran. Al-Alaq said Iraq's reserves are more than $100 billion , but he cannot intervene freely in the market to lower the exchange rate due to the restrictions.Last month, US officials said the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve blocked 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions as part of a broader campaign to smuggle dollars into Iran through the Iraqi banking system. Al-Alaq said that the transactions that led to the sanctions took place in 2022, before the launch of a new platformaimed at improving transparency.
The Iraqi Central Bank also imposed stricter regulations on dollar transfers, requiring dealers to enter an online platform and provide detailed information about the final future of the transfers. He added that he central bank was conducting a review of the banking sector and would implement new regulations and rules that he said would likely see some banks closed.
"It will be very normal in the coming period to see a decrease in (the number of private banks)," he said. He said, There are always side effects, but at the same time we have a responsibility to protect the country's interests by trying to find the necessary means of monitoring and oversight so that we do not expose the country to any issues on this front."
https://www.non14.net/public/159368
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US PRESIDENT BIDEN’S ADMINISTRATION TALKS ABOUT A (360) PARTNERSHIP WITH IRAQ
Last week, the American capital witnessed the first Iraqi-American meeting on “joint security cooperation”. The title appears to be a repetition of slogans, but in reality it is a turning point in US-Iraqi relations.
Twenty years ago, US-Iraqi relations were that of an army that invaded the territory of another country and overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime, then faced the rebellion, then left according to an agreement and returned to confront ISIS, and now he wants the Americans to work only to help the government in this last mission.
A senior official in the US Department of Defense confirms that the United States understands that the mission against ISIS will end, and therefore the two sides began to discuss what comes after this mission.
360 degrees
The joint statement issued at the end of the talks at the Pentagon building talks about a “360-degree comprehensive partnership,” and a senior official at the US Department of Defense said, in a meeting with reporters after these talks, that the “promised” relations could include “bilateral and multilateral military exercises, exchange Information and intelligence exchange, and of course selling US-origin weapons and helping the Iraqis maintain this equipment and follow up on its proper use for border protection and other operations.”
These American proposals carry with them many challenges, the most important of which is that the Iraqi forces will be an army similar to the American army. Engaging in bilateral or multilateral exercises means that the elements of the two armies will speak the same language. As for the exchange of information, especially intelligence, it means that the two parties will work after the stage of combating terrorism to be two friendly armies, exchanging confidential information and each side is confident that the other party will not misuse it, and that this information will not be leaked to a third party.
Iraqi transformation
The Americans now see that the Iraqi forces are forces with a good ability in counter-terrorism affairs, and the great challenge for both sides will be to transform this Iraqi military force into an army that works with the Americans in achieving the goals of “integrated deterrence and regional security,” according to the American official, which is what he meant when he spoke. To the journalists, “Iraq becomes part of the structure of American-Arab cooperation to protect the airspace, lands, and waters from any aggression, whether by a state or by terrorist organizations.
These matters should not be viewed as new for the Americans, as the current President Joe Biden, when he went to Jeddah in the year 2022, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council were present, and Iraq was also present, along with Jordan and Egypt, but the external and domestic pressures that Iraq is exposed to put it in a different category.
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