THOUGH the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has kept Pakistan on the so-called grey-list and the position would be reviewed in June again but remarks made by President of the Task Force Dr Marcus Pleyer at a press briefing from Paris were full of appreciation of the country for making significant progress towards implementation of the recommendations of the FATF.
He also poured cold water on the wishes of anti-Pakistan circles when he told an Indian journalist that Pakistan was working towards its commitment made at a high level to implement the illicit financing watchdog’s recommendations, saying “that is not the time to put a country on the blacklist”.
Pakistan has vigorously implemented most of the recommendations of the Task Force and has a robust strategy to implement the remaining points, therefore, it ought to have been removed from the grey list.
The decision to keep the country on tenterhooks repeatedly seems to have been motivated by considerations other than practical implementation and commitment of the country, It is known to all that Pakistan was one of the most affected countries due to different dimensions of the menace of terrorism and despite resource and capacity constraints it has achieved milestones that no other country can claim to match.
In fact, this reality has been indirectly acknowledged by the FATF when it observed that the country has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 24 of the 27 action items.
Pakistan has partially addressed the remaining three points and it is hoped that the process would stand completed when the next review is due but the language of the third point conveys an impression that FATF was partly acting on the agenda of some other countries that have their own scores to settle with Pakistan.
This discrimination must end and a cooperative mode is needed to boost efforts of the country to strengthen different frameworks to fight the menace of terrorism in a holistic manner.
