US embassy cable - 04ABUDHABI1298

UNCLAS ABU DHABI 001298 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARP, S/CT, INL/ENT, EB/ESC 
TREASURY FOR ZARATE, GLASER, AND MURDEN 
 
E.O. 12958: NA 
TAGS: EFIN, KCRM, PTER, ECON, TC 
SUBJECT: UAE CENTRAL BANK ON FATF/CTAG PARTICIPATION 
 
REF: STATE 73900 
 
1. (SBU) DCM and EconChief met with UAE Central 
Bank Governor Sultan Nasser Al-Suwaidi on April 11. 
During that meeting, Al-Suwaidi stated that the UAE 
continued to be interested in money laundering 
training opportunities with the USG.  He suggested 
that the UAEG customs authorities could benefit 
from having anti-money laundering training, 
especially in the area of trade (commodities) based 
money laundering). 
 
2. (SBU) EconChief used the opportunity to ask the 
Governor to reconsider participating in the 
FATF/CTAG technical assistance needs assessment 
process(reftel).  In response, Al-Suwaidi explained 
that the UAE had recently participated in the IMF's 
Anti-Money Laundering assessment.  He noted that 
the IMF's assessment had lasted 10 days and covered 
- among other things - the financial sector, the 
gold and jewelry markets and the Dubai 
International Financial Center.  He said that he 
thought the IMF and FATF/CTAG assessments probably 
covered much of the same ground, although he 
acknowledged that FATF was focused more on training 
opportunities.  He suggested that he wanted to wait 
until the IMF finished its report and highlighted 
weaknesses in the UAE anti money laundering regime, 
before considering a separate FATF process. As an 
aside, he briefly discussed FATF's efforts to 
establish a FATF regional body in the Middle East. 
He said the UAE would support this, but was 
interested in becoming a full FATF member in its 
own right. 
 
3. (SBU) Comment:  Al-Suwaidi's remarks reflected 
the UAE's preference for bilateral cooperation with 
the U.S. rather than participating in a 
multilateral process.  He has previously criticized 
FATF assessments of non-members (specifically the 
Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) 
exercise).  Although the Treasury Department's 
Daniel Glaser had previously explained that this 
assessment was not/not like the NCCT, we believe 
that Al-Suwaidi's views of that process likely 
influenced his decision to opt out of another 
"multilateral" assessment.  Post recommends that we 
wait until the IMF assessment is completed before 
again approaching the UAEG on this issue.  We will 
need to provide the governor with concrete reasons 
why we prefer that the UAEG participate in the 
FATF/CTAG process, given his demonstrated 
preference for working bilaterally with the U.S. 
 
ALBRIGHT