ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is optimistic of its exit from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as the meeting of the international terror finance watchdog will be held on Monday.
The FATF in its upcoming meeting discuss and decide whether or not to keep Pakistan on the grey list.
The virtual FATF plenary will be held in Paris from February 22 to 25 to consider cases of various countries on the grey list, including Pakistan, and decision will be made at the conclusion of the meetings.
In the last plenary held in October 2020, FATF had announced that Pakistan would continue to remain on its grey list till February 2021 for six out of 27 unmet action plan targets on anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).
Pakistan had already complied with the six recommendations and also submitted details to the FATF secretariat, an official said, adding the members would now evaluate Pakistan’s responses during the meeting, the source said, adding that Pakistan had made significant progress in legislation as well as its implementation.
Pakistan had submitted a detailed response in October 2020 to FATF. Even then, it demanded more from Islamabad. It is too early to say if this time again FATF may ask for more actions or the existing ones will be enough to remove Pakistan from the grey list. However, the decision would be taken after a consensus among the members, the source said.
It was learnt that European countries have recommended to FATF to continue to keep Pakistan on the grey list and had taken the position that not all points had been fully implemented by Islamabad.
France was not happy with the recent response of Islamabad on the cartoon issue. Pakistan has not even posted a regular ambassador in Paris, he said, adding that diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries were not up to the mark.
The United States has also expressed concern over the acquittal of one of the accused in Daniel Pearl murder case. It is feared that the US may also lobby for continuation of Islamabad on the grey list at least until June this year.
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