Qureshi calls for grave efforts to address FATF concerns

Says India wants Pakistan to be put on dark list if not on black list

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Thursday that more work needed to be done to address the reservations of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism stating that these two factors were the biggest hurdles in pulling Pakistan out from the grey list of the world financial watchdog.

The foreign minister urged all the political parties to come on same page for the purpose and stressed that extra steps were needed to exclude Pakistan from the grey list.

“India wants Pakistan to be put on dark list if not on the black list,” he said.

Qureshi, while addressing an in-camera meeting of the Standing Committee of National Assembly on Foreign Affairs said that Pakistan was taking solid steps to come out of FATF grey list and that these measures had been shared with all member countries in black and white.

He said that finance ministry was mainly responsible to deal with the matters of FATF whereas the foreign ministry was diplomatically supporting it for the purpose.

Qureshi said that the officers of finance ministry do not have the capacity to present the issues on international level, therefore, two foreign consultants have been appointed for the counseling of its officers.

He maintained that member countries were being diplomatically engaged on FATF and all the states appreciated the steps taken by Pakistan in the last meeting.

Qureshi told the session that Pakistan needed the cooperation of three countries to evade black list, which it already had, but India was endeavouring to place Islamabad on the dark grey list if not the black list.

He said that Pakistan implemented 25 out of 27 conditions of FATF whereas more steps needed to be taken to address the reservations of financial watchdog on hawala, hundi, money laundering and counter terrorism financing for which all political parties will have to come on the same lines.

The foreign minister said Pakistan would try to present its case in a better way in the next meeting scheduled to be held in September.

He observed that the provincial governments needed to implement policies to curb money laundering and terror financing but they lacked the capacity to act on them.

Talking about PM Imran’s visit to the United States, FM Qureshi noted that the tour initiated better relations with Washington.

He said that the agreeing of Taliban to talks was a ray of hope and only time would tell if the efforts would succeed or fail.

Terming it a welcome sign, Qureshi remarked that those who did not even want to give a second thought to the issue, after 18 years were talking about a peaceful solution instead of war.