‘No chance of FATF blacklisting’

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Friday said India had badly failed in its nefarious designs to get Pakistan blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In a statement, he said the Indian government was using the issue of FATF against Pakistan for political gains.

He said Pakistan's efforts were reflective of the fact that it was serious about taking actions against terror-financing and money-laundering. He said the FATF had acknowledged Pakistan's implementation of 24 out of 27 points, expressing confidence that progress on the three points would be fully made by June.

He said 13 countries had appreciated Pakistan's efforts in the FATF meeting. The foreign minister also welcomed the observance of ceasefire agreement between Pakistan and India, terming it a positive development.

He said India had been frequently violating the agreement, which resulted in loss of lives of innocent civilians. On the Kashmir dispute, he said India could not deny the resolution of the issue in accordance with the resolutions of United Nations Security Council. The American Pakistan Public Affairs Committee, he said, had demanded of the United States to address the grievances of oppressed people.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar Friday said Pakistan had completely avoided blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and will come out of the grey list in June this year, as it had made significant progress on the historically toughest action plan in a very challenging time amid Covid-19 pandemic.

Addressing a press conference here, Hammad Azhar, who led Pakistan’s delegation in the FATF Plenary, said initially when the action plan was given in 2018, the country’s focus was on avoiding blacklisting that would have caused negative effects to the country.

He said the FATF time lines were tough and the plan given to Pakistan was world’s toughest action plan, but Pakistan successfully did it and it was admitted by the FATF countries and FATF Secretariat.

“During the last plenary, FATF countries and the FATF secretariat said blacklisting was not an option for Pakistan because it had made significant progress," Hammad remarked. Secondly, the minister said, Pakistan had target to complete the 27-point action plan, on which significant progress had been made, adding that the financial systems had even gone ahead of international standards.

He said the FATF had also admitted that around 90 per cent progress was achieved by Pakistan. He said Pakistan made progress across all action plan items and had now largely addressed 24 of the 27 action items adding that considerable progress had also been made on the remaining three points, which would also be completed by June to completely get the country out of grey list.

He said Pakistan had the option to not report during Covid-19 pandemic as was opted by some countries but it continued the exercise and got a positive outcome. To a question he said, India tried to politicise the issue at the FATF forum to put Pakistan on the black list but it miserably failed and got exposed itself.

As far as India’s own issues are concerned on terror financing and non-state actors, they are getting exposed for involvement in terror financing in Pakistan and Afghanistan to destabilise country’s economy, he added.

To a question, the minister said that FATF was safeguarding world economies and like Pakistan other countries, including the European countries, were also included in the grey list for streamline their affairs.