FATF: Where does Pakistan stand?

The Pakistani delegation in Paris received messages that India had asked other member states to put Pakistan on the blacklist.

Pakistan made a high-level political promise earlier in 2018 to work closely with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and APG to improve its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) policies and to cater to its strategic counter terrorist financing-related weaknesses. Steps were taken in order to operationalize the combined database for its currencies enunciation regime, as acknowledged by the FATF at a meeting earlier this February. The statement however concluded that Pakistan needed to meet the expectations of the action plan by May 2019 in order to be de-listed from the FATF’s ‘grey list’. Pakistani officials were surprised as they had been under the impression that the FATF had been appreciative of the steps that had been taken place in January as per requirement by the FATF and AML/CFT. Pakistan needs to address its geopolitical ‘deficiencies’ to be able to qualify for a de-listing.

Some of these ‘deficiencies’ include the understanding of the threat posed by terrorist groups like the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Falah-i-Insaniyat and that ‘authorities are identifying cash couriers and enforcing controls on illicit movement of currency.’ Further demotion from the ‘grey-list’ could hinder Pakistan’s foreign investment and deter the access to international markets as Pakistan is already deeply infested in a financial crisis. India pressed Pakistan to make public the measures taken against terrorist organizations to which Pakistan replied saying that it was up to them whether or not to publicize actions taken against these groups and that it would not kneel down to pressure from India. A country being labeled a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ should not be an instrument used in order to halt terrorist activity; it is a very burdensome label to put upon a state struggling to save its own citizens from the threat terrorist organizations have posed for decades.