China, Turkey, Malaysia bail out Pakistan at FATF meet

Pakistan has managed to avoid being placed on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist for now following support from all-weather ally China, traditional ally Turkey and Malaysia.

The FATF charter mandates support of at least three member states to avoid the blacklisting.

The development has come as a relief for the Imran Khan-led Pakistan government, but Pakistan government sources said the danger is still not over as a formal decision of the FATF on blacklisting is to be announced in October this year.

The FATF meet in Orlando, US, on Thursday discussed the blacklisting of Pakistan. ET had reported first that it was unlikely that Islamabad may be blacklisted in this (June 16-21) meet.

The Indian delegation, headed by Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) chief PK Mishra, pressed for Pakistan’s blacklisting and provided fresh evidence on the role of Hafiz Saeed’s Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) and its deputy Shahid Mahmood.

Citing investigations into FIF, Delhi argued on Thursday that Pakistanbased terror groups continue to create unrest in other Indian states too besides Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been on the global money laundering and terror financing watchdog FATF’s ‘greylist’ since June 2018 after it was placed in the list of terrorist financing and money laundering risks following a thorough assessment by the Asia Pacific Group (APG) of the country’s security mechanism and its financial systems.

Currently, India, the co-chair of the joint group of FATF and the Asia Pacific Group (APG) along with other global powers, has been pushing for blacklisting of Islamabad as the country has failed to meet international standards in combating financial crimes and terror financing.

Pakistan has not been able to implement the action plan, which was assigned to it by the APG and FATF, deadline of which ended in January 2019, but was given breather of sorts till May 2019.

In a statement after the end of the plenary, FATF urged “Pakistan to complete its action plan by October 2019 when the last set of ‘action plan’ data-x-items is set to expire.” If Pakistan does not comply by October, “FATF will decide the next step at that time for insufficient progress” which could refer to a possible blacklisting.