Solomons' students travel delayed by bank transaction ban
Updated
The Solomon Islands says it will still use money provided by Iran to send 25 medical students to Cuba. Last week the travel plans for the students were put on hold after the ANZ bank declined to process a payment of 100 thousand dollars to fund the cost of the travel to Cuba. Late last year the Solomon Islands' government announced it was forming a closer relationship with Iran. Its stated purpose was to allow the island nation to have to access to Middle East country's expertise in civil engineering. But Iran's latest offer of financial assistance has hit a hurdle.
Presenter: Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Australia, Victor Ngele
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COONEY: Solomon Islands asked Iran for $US100,000 to fund the travel costs of 25 students moving to Cuba to study medicine, joining 50 others already in the Caribbean country. Iran agreed, but the Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Australia, Victor Ngele, says when the money was sent it raised some issues for the financial institution involved.
NGELE: The ANZ Bank in Honiara perhaps in consultation with ANZ Bank here headquarters in Melbourne have indicated that they were not willing to handle the funds, and therefore it was returned to Australia. The decision taken by ANZ Bank was purely a corporate decision and it has nothing to do with the Australian government as such, because Australia does not impose embargo on Iranian funds.
COONEY: But the United States does have sanctions on moving money out of Iran. In a statement a spokesperson for the ANZ Bank said:
ANZ SPOKESMAN: As part of ANZ's economic and trade sanctions policy, ANZ will not undertake remittances or transactions in any currency directly or indirectly involving Iran, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar or Cuba.
COONEY: As well,
ANZ SPOKESMAN: The policy is intended not only to ensure ANZ complies with all relevant international sanctions, but reflects a belt and braces approach, given the unacceptable risk of sanctions non-compliance and the gravity of consequences associated with non-compliance.
COONEY: In August the ANZ announced it had reached agreement with the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, concerning 31 trade finance transactions conducted between 2004-2006, involving parties in Sudan and Cuba. The ANZ made a payment of nearly $US6 million to settle the alleged violations of US economic sanctions, and made a commitment to continue an increased program of oversight and compliance. The withholding of the Iranian money has also coincided with the visit to Solomon Islands by Israel's deputy ambassador, Gili Sharir, who's also the deputy director of the Pacific Department within Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Solomon Islands' media is reporting the visit is to meet with government and church leaders, private organisations, and the Israel consular office which opened in May this year. But the visit's main purpose is to get an explanation from the Solomon Islands government about why it was the only Oceania country which voted in support of the Goldstone report, which is highly critical of Israel's on Gaza. The only thing the Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Australia Victor Ngele will say is that his country decides its own position on international issues.
NGELE: Solomon Islands is a sovereign country and has the right to make its own decision.
COONEY: But what now, the perspective medical students who are stuck in Honiara?
NGELE: We're working towards 23rd of this month, we do have 50 students in Cuba now. We are sending another 25, so it appears to me that we are sending 25 students to Cuba to do medical studies. I don't underestimate our own capacity to fund our own students travel, but this is a situation where under the form, the cooperation between us and Iran signed by our Foreign Minister and his counterpart, the assistance was utilised. I can't say whether it's annual thing or not, but certainly this time around it has come to our rescue.
