No more justification to keep Pakistan on FATF grey list, says Qureshi

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday said as Pakistan has fulfilled 26 out of the 27 action items of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) plan, there is no justification for the country to remain on the “grey list”.

The foreign minister in a statement said Pakistan has fulfilled the “maximum technical requirements regarding FATF”. His statement comes as the five-day virtual meeting of the FATF was under way in Paris. The meeting began on June 21 and the global monitor will make public its findings tomorrow (June 25).

On February 25, the FATF determined that Pakistan would remain on its grey list till the June meeting. FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer said the global financial watchdog found Pakistan had completed 24 of the 27 points pertaining to terror financing.

Pleyer said while considerable progress had been made, some “serious deficiencies” remained and so Pakistan would continue to remain “under increased monitoring”. In his statement, Qureshi said India was making attempts to “misuse the forum” of the FATF for political purposes and doing “continuous propaganda against Pakistan”. He said Pakistan took concrete steps to curb money-laundering and terrorist financing in the national interest.

He pointed out that Pakistan “inherited” the problem of FATF grey-listing from the previous government. Despite that, he said, the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan did its best to get Pakistan out of the grey list.

The foreign minister said the world was acknowledging Pakistan’s efforts in implementation of the FATF Action Plan. On June 18, Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri had reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthening its AML/CFT regime without prejudging the outcome of the upcoming plenary meeting of the FATF.

“As you are aware, Pakistan has made significant strides during the implementation of the Action Plan through concerted national efforts. The tremendous progress made by Pakistan leading towards the conclusion of the Action Plan has been acknowledged by the FATF as well as the larger international community,” said the spokesman.

In the previous meeting, Pleyer had said: “Out of the 27 conditions, three still need to be addressed,” he said. “I recognise Pakistan’s efforts, and out of the six tasks that it had to complete, three had been [done] in an outstanding manner, but it substantially needs to work on the remaining three, particularly in terms of terror financing.”