Pakistan expected to get four-month breather to fulfil FATF obligations and secure its exit from grey list

Islamabad: Pakistan is likely to get four months to fulfil requirements of the anti-terrorism financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and secure an exit from its grey list.

A decision to this effect was likely to be taken by the FATF on Friday after the conclusion of the 16-21 February group meetings and plenary in Paris. The Pakistani delegation to the meetings was led by Revenue Minister Hammad Azhar.

The FATF in October, 2019, decided to keep Pakistan on its ‘Grey’ list for failure to curb funnelling of funds to terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and others.

If not removed off the list by April, Pakistan may move to a blacklist of countries that face severe economic sanctions, such as Iran.

According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, the international terror financing watchdog was set to give Pakistan time till June, 2020, to achieve full compliance with its 27-point action plan and secure exit from the FATF grey list.

Sources from Paris said that Pakistan was found fully or close to fully compliant on more than half of the 27 targets.

“We are satisfied with the progress so far. There was no case at all for blacklisting us,” a source was quoted as saying in the report.

Pakistan is already finalising major amendments to at least a dozen of its laws to meet the FATF requirements by June this year. “Based on that, the country’s performance would be judged in the next FATF plenary in October 2020,” the report said.

The country submitted a 650-page review report to the FATF on 8 January. The report was submitted in response to 150 questions raised by the FATF regarding new Pakistani policies on money laundering. The report outlined the steps taken by Pakistan between October 2019 to January 2020 to implement the group’s recommendations.

In January, Pakistan urged the US to support its bid to exit from FATF’s grey list ahead of a key meeting of the international terror financing watchdog in Beijing in which Islamabad’s efforts to adopt stricter laws against terror financing and money laundering were scrutinised.