Well, the joint plan of action seems to be one of those agreements that's in the eye of the beholder. It's being interpreted very differently by the U.S. government and its P5+1 allies on the one hand, and in the Iranian government on the other.
It is clear from the public statements of Iranian officials that they have no intention of dismantling their nuclear program. It is clear from the public statements of Iranian officials that, while they promise so-called transparency in their nuclear program, that transparency will not extend to cover the entire territory of Iran; in other words, providing the kind of unfettered, anywhere, anytime IAEA inspections that are vital to ensuring that Iran is in full compliance with its nuclear obligations and is not building, as it has in the past, clandestine nuclear facilities.
It is clear that there is a fundamental difference in interpretation on questions of the kind of sanctions relief that Iran should be entitled to. You know, it's worth actually saying this in Canada. I mean, you have a banking system that you rightly should be proud of. You should also understand that the Iranian banking system in the entire territory of Iran has been declared by the U.S. government to be a jurisdiction of primary money-laundering concern. The U.S. government, Canada, and Europe have designated Iranian banks, because those banks have been involved in illicit finance supporting WMD, terrorism, money laundering and sanction circumvention.
It is absolutely incumbent that banks in Canada understand that right now there's no such thing as a good Iranian bank. The entire Iranian financial sector has been designated because it poses a threat to the integrity of the global financial system. A notion that we're going to have a nuclear agreement and allow all of these bad Iranian banks to be provided access to the global financial system really flies in the face of good banking practices and undercuts the very rationale for why those banks were designated. There is a fundamental misinterpretation and disagreement between the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the one hand and the Iranian regime on the other about how quickly those banks should be allowed back in.
Professor Cotler, I could take hours to illuminate the differences in understanding. My fundamental point is and my concern is that we are setting ourselves up for a bad nuclear agreement, because Iranian expectations about what they should be getting as part of this agreement stand at odds with yours, not only U.S. policy but with multiple UN Security Council resolutions that are clear in what Iran has to do in order to satisfy international obligations.