US finds faults with system of Pakistan for halting terror funding

ISLAMABAD: United States (US) has urged Pakistan to address the continuing presence of the Haqqani network and other terrorist groups within its territory, and reiterated the international community’s longstanding concern about ongoing deficiencies in Pakistan’s implementation of its anti-money laundering/counterterrorism finance regime.

United States also informed Pakistan that it was seeking to move toward a new relationship with Islamabad, “based on a shared commitment to defeat all terrorist groups that threaten regional stability and security as well as on a shared vision of a peaceful future for Afghanistan which would enable the dignified return of Afghan refugees to their homeland.”

This message was brought on Monday by Deputy Assistant to the President and the US National Security Council’s Senior Director for South and Central Asia Lisa Curtis.

However, Tuesday saw that Washington’s praise for Pakistan was not unconditional. Two days after the US and China pushed Pakistan on the Grey list at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), plenary session in Paris last week, both countries have never the less, acknowledged “Pakistan’s considerable sacrifices fighting terrorism and having taken active measures to strengthen financial supervision and crack down on terrorist financing and made important progress.”

Pakistan has been given three-month breather to take essential measures to avoid action of being placed on the Black list of FATF. Curtis was repeating exactly the same US line which was delivered a few months ago, by US Department of State’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Ambassador Alice G Wells.

Diplomatic sources tell The News that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was miffed first at the US role of deliberately wishing to see Pakistan “suffer” at FATF, secondly, a message from the visiting Lisa Curtis, “about the deficiencies in Pakistan’s implementation of its anti-money laundering/counterterrorism finance regime”, resulted in the Foreign Office ignoring the Curtis visit altogether except for an informal Tweet.

In fact it was the US Embassy which at the conclusion of the two day Curtis visit issued a formal statement about her meetings with the Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Bilal Akbar, Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua.

The official news agency quoted Ahsan Iqbal telling Curtis that “harmony in Pak-US relationship was vital for defeating terrorism in the region”. Even the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) ignored Lisa Curtis’ meeting with General Akbar and did not issue a statement. On her last visit to Rawalpindi Curtis had met COAS General Bajwa.

The US Embassy statement also pointed to both countries seeing the defeat of ISIS in South Asia and the elimination of terrorist groups that threaten both Pakistan and the United States.

Meanwhile, in the first statement after putting Pakistan on the FATF Grey list, spokesman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry asked the international community to view objectively and evaluate Pakistan’s efforts in the field of international anti-terrorism instead of accusing Pakistan of bias with prejudice.

“Pakistan has taken active measures to strengthen financial supervision and crack down on terrorist financing and made important progress. China gives high recognition to this,” spokesman Lu Kang said during his regular briefing.

“We hope all concerned parties in the international community can give an objective and fair assessment of this,” he added. In Islamabad the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing on Tuesday said he can’t say that Beijing did not support Pakistan in Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting during which the US moved a motion to put Pakistan on ‘Grey-list.’

As Pakistanis reacted in disappointed as it headed towards the FATF Grey list while Beijing was alleviated to the office of Vice-President of FATF, Yao Jing, was reluctant to elaborate except to comment, “I do not know yet what happened in Paris as it is a very technical issue”.