SANGOLQUI, Ecuador, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Ecuador's inclusion on an international list of nations accused of lagging in the fight against money-laundering is a hypocritical punishment for its relations with Iran, Ecuador's president said on Saturday.
"What arrogance! And why? Because we have relations with Iran. That's it," Rafael Correa said at his weekly town-hall meeting. "This is imperialism in its most base form ... This has nothing to do with the struggle against money laundering."
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), comprised of governments and regional organizations, named Ecuador this week alongside Iran, Angola, North Korea and Ethiopia as nations failing to comply with international regulations against money-laundering and financing terrorism. [ID:nLDE61H21G]
Under Correa, Ecuador has strengthened diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran, which has opened an embassy in Quito and is forging wider relations across Latin America despite the concerns of Washington.
"We have been black-listed along with Iran, Ethiopia, Angola and North Korea. We are the financiers of terrorism in the world!" the leftist Correa said indignantly during his regular Saturday televised address.
"It's a stick so you don't misbehave, naughty boy. You didn't do what I said, don't get involved with Iran. So because you went ahead, we'll put you on the black list, that's all."
The FATF said in its report, released on Thursday, that Ecuador had not "constructively engaged" with it and had "not committed" to global standards on money crimes.
Correa said Ecuador has perfectly adequate legislation and dismissed the report as "a huge lie." He asked why nobody had mentioned Brazil, which also has growing ties with Iran.
Correa said international authorities should put pressure instead on rich nations like the United States and Switzerland over money-laundering in their financial systems.
He was speaking in his weekly televised address, this time in the highland town of Sangolqui outside Quito. He arrived in a wheelchair after a knee operation in Cuba last week. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Andrew Cawthorne; editing by Todd Eastham)
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