From Christina Palmer
NEW DELHI: Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said the Modi government ensured that Pakistan remained on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Indian FM Jaishankar while addressing the training program on the foreign policy of the Modi government accepted that “it was due to the Modi government’s efforts” that Pakistan was retained on the FATF grey list.
“Due to us, Pakistan is under the lens of FATF and it was kept in the grey list,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying by Indian media.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last month announced that Pakistan will remain on its grey list till October 2021. The terror financing watchdog had lauded the country’s significant progress in implementing 26 of the 27 action items in the 2018 action plan.
Addressing a press conference after the June 21-25 plenary meeting, FATF President Dr Marcus Pleyer said, “The Pakistani government has made substantial progress in making its counter-terrorist financing systems stronger and more effective. It has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018,” he hadsaid.
Earlier in June, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said India was using FATF for political purposes.
FATF is a technical forum and should not be used for political purposes, he said in a statement Monday issued by FM’s media cell here. The foreign minister was holding bilateral talks with the foreign ministers of different countries conveyed his concerns to them.
The foreign minister said if FATF’s goal is to stop money-laundering and terror financing, then our goal is the same. We will continue to move forward to curb money-laundering and terror financing in our own interest, he added.
The FATF and their thinking is the same, “we are working on our own and are implementing it according to our goals.The FATF assigned them hard tasks in the last two years and it was difficult to implement but Pakistan did it. Qureshi said Pakistan has amended 14 laws to follow the FATF discipline and made new legislation. Pakistan has taken administrative steps and we not only identified those responsible but also took action against them.As far as diplomatic efforts are concerned, China, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Gulf countries have openly supported Pakistan on this issue, he said, adding, “I think it is important to make it clear that what we did our full to resolve the FATF issues which was also our national interest”.
