US motion to put Pakistan on ‘grey list’ differed

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan remained successful with the help of its friends as a US-sponsored motion to place Pakistan on a terror-financing watchlist maintained by Financial Action Task Force and the meeting was concluded on no consensus.

The FATF meeting was kicked off earlier this week and it was expected that US will put forward a resolution with the backing of its allies including Germany, France, Britain, to put Pakistan on grey list by ignoring its losses and sacrifices in the war against terrorism.

The grey list is maintained for identifying countries, which are failed to take concrete steps to end money-laundering and terror financing.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif announced the major development on his twitter account and he also thanked the friends who helped in this situation.

Khawaja Asif said that the US resolution has been delayed for three months and the Asia Pacific Group has been asked to present another report in June.

The resolution was postponed after China, Turkey, and Russia, opposed the motion.  As per the schedule the US backed motion was set to be tabled in FATF for voting on Wednesday, but the plan has been dropped due to lack of consensus.

Earlier, Advisor to PM Dr Miftah Ismail blamed India for pushing America against Pakistan and adding that the recent move to put Pakistan on FATF grey list is for only political purposes.

Meanwhile, the financial sector experts, any move to place Pakistan on the watch-list would enhance scrutiny level of the financial transactions that the country’s banking sector would undertake with the rest of the world.

This will increase the cost of opening letter of credits (LC) for trade purposes. The negative decision by FATF will have the force to affect the international credit ratings, which will in turn increase cost of borrowings for the government.

At present, the 11 jurisdictions are on the high risk and monitoring list of the FATF, which include North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia. Pakistan was on the FATF grey list from 2009 to 2015.