Shafaq News / The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign affairs expressed, on Wednesday, its deplored enlisting Iraq on the European list of high-risk countries in regards to money laundering operations.

"The minister of Foreign affairs, Fouad Hussein, has sent a message to his European counterparts urging them to reject the European Commission's decision to include Iraq in the list of high-risk countries regarding money laundering and financing of terrorism," the Ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf said in a statement reported to Shafaq News agency.

He added, "The Minister of Foreign Affairs assured his counterparts: over the years, has implemented important laws and measures aimed at combating money laundering, terrorist financing and mitigating risks associated with it".

It is noteworthy that FATF report indicated that the AML / CFT preventive measures in Iraq are firm and well established.

Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. The overall scheme of this process returns the "clean" money to the launderer in an obscure and indirect way.