Senator Irfan Siddiqui on Sunday said that the Finance Minister, Shaukat Tareen, addrressing the Senate tried to justify his failure to get Pakistan removed from FATF’s grey list, saying that “despite our efforts, for some reasons, we are not being removed from FATF’s grey list.”
The Senator, in a statement, said, “This justification is acknowledgment of the fact that Pakistan’s foreign policy has failed miserably and we are not getting the support we need at any international forum.”
He added that the Minister’s confession that despite fulfilling almost all the prerequisites of FATF, our enemies were succeeding in their efforts was in fact the worst failure of foreign policy.
Irfan Siddiqui said that institutions like FATF and IMF have not only taken hold of our national independence and sovereignty but also the personal dignity of every Pakistani.
He said the situation was such that politics has become a major crime and a person attached to it cannot even open a bank account. He said that the government has finally admitted that Nawaz Sharif had left Pakistan on the FATF white list. Now the Finance Minister says that even after fulfilling 27 out of 28 prerequisites, Pakistan is not getting out of FATF’s grey list because the lobbying of our enemies is succeeding.
Senator Siddiqui said that this was a proof of Pakistan’s global isolation. Such is the ground reality and we claim to mediate between China and United States.
