ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Raising doubts over the functioning of the global terror financing watchdog ‘Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’, the Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday said it had to be determined whether the FATF was a technical forum or a political one.
In a statement on Saturday, the foreign minister said it also needed to be looked into whether that the FATF forum was being used for political purposes.
Qureshi said some powers desired to keep the sword of FATF hanging over Pakistan.
The foreign minister said there was no room to keep Pakistan in the FATF grey list after it had implemented 26 out of 27 action plans. He said the forum itself accepted that Pakistan had implemented 26 out of 27 action plans whereas significant progress had been made on the 27th one.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi made it clear that whatever steps Pakistan had taken were in its own interests. He said it was in their interest to stop money laundering and terror financing.
Earlier on Friday, following its virtual plenary, the FATF though recognized considerable progress made by Pakistan on the action plan and Islamabad’s high-level commitment but it yet decided to retain the status quo for Pakistan i.e. Countries in increased monitoring for the 2018 Terror Finance Action Plan for remaining one action plan item.
