Placement on FATF grey list: US wants to see Pakistan suffer: Miftah

ISLAMABAD: “America is out to get us”, a senior official involved with talks at Financial Action Task Force (FATF) told The News just before Saudi Arabia and China drew back support for Pakistan in Paris placing it back on the “grey list” of nations with inadequate terrorist financing or money laundering controls.

Only three votes from three countries were needed for Pakistan to escape the grey list but in the end only Turkey stood firm.

Although there was a deafening silence in Islamabad at this latest diplomatic isolation, officials involved told The News that they had prepared for the worst after contacts with Miftah Ismail, Adviser on Finance was made, and had immediately informed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

India, which was burning the midnight oil with the United States, congratulated China which was also elevated as Vice President of FATF at the Paris plenary meeting on Friday.

Media reports point to New Delhi reportedly working out a deal with Beijing, assuring China a larger role in the FATF.

China's election to the FATF assumes significance as Pakistan is set to be put in the watchdog's grey list, which puts countries under the scanner for not implementing the body's objectives, in June this year.

"Congratulations to China on its election as Vice President of Financial Action Task Force at the FATF plenary meeting. We remain hopeful that China would uphold and support the objectives and standards of FATF in a balanced, objective, impartial and holistic way," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

The Indian media pointed out that the Ministry of External Affairs did not comment on whether a deal had been worked out at the FATF, but analysts said given China’s track record of striking bargains for its vote in international organisations, it was possible that Beijing had done the same at the FATF plenary.

Raveesh Kumar did not confirm any quid pro quo, especially when in the past China has gone out of its way to protect Pakistani interests at the United Nations and at fora like the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

Speaking to Reuters, Miftah lashed out at the United States for trying to ’embarrass’ Pakistan. He said Washington did not seem genuinely eager to see Pakistan boost its terrorist financing regulations and was instead bent on humiliating the country.

“If the Americans were interested in working with us and improving our CTF (counter-terrorist financing) regulations, they would have taken the offer I was making them,” Ismail said.

“But their idea was just to embarrass Pakistan.”

Ismail said he urged the United States to allow Pakistan until June to fix any outstanding CTF issues and ceded ground in negotiations to strike a deal but the US was determined to see Pakistan suffer.

The next FATF meetings will be held in June and October.

“In the long-term, Pakistan has to focus on improving its perception as a responsible state by self-disciplining its policies relating to non-state actors, JuD, its affiliates and other Taliban-linked groups. Pakistan has no political choice -- it's a legal compulsion under the UN law laid down in several of its Chapter 7 resolutions. I have been forewarning the state in my writings and talks that we need to bring our internal policies and laws in accordance with International Law obligations,” says expert on International Law, Ahmer Bilal Soofi.

Meanwhile, it will be business as usual when Pakistan’s Minister of Commerce Pervaiz Malik attends an informal WTO ministerial meeting taking place in New Delhi on March 19-20, the Indian media reported.

The invitation comes in the wake of the late-December secret back-channel negotiations between the two national security advisors, Ajit Doval and Nasser Janjua, say reports.

In the background learns The News, there has been pressure from important world capitals on India to cool temperatures and hold some meetings with Pakistan.

This will be the first high-level visit of a Pakistani leader since December 2016 when Sartaj Aziz, then foreign affairs advisor, visited India for the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan in Amritsar.

In an extremely undiplomatic incident, Indian and Afghan politicians went out of their way to embarrass Sartaj Aziz, who had the grace not to walk out. Pakistan was charged with launching an “undeclared war” on Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan Taliban.

In a dramatic change of events last week saw Indian Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Turkmenistan President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov holding hands at the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline inaugural ceremony.