Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday expressed regret over the decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to keep Pakistan on its grey list after Islamabad fulfilled 26 of the 27 conditions under the action plan given to it by the financial watchdog.
The FATF on Friday announced to keep Pakistan on its grey list till it addressed “the one remaining CFT-related item”. It has also handed the government six new anti-money laundering areas to work on.
FM Qureshi said, “it is to be determined whether FATF is a political forum or a technical one and whether it is being used to achieve political objectives.”
As far as the issue of addressing the FATF’s action plan is concerned, Pakistan has completed work on 26 points, he said and added that significant progress has been made on the 27th point.
He wondered that still the watchdog decided to keep Pakistan in grey list and said he found no reason for such a decision.
FM Qureshi said Pakistan is taking steps in its own interest. “What is our interest? Our interest is to curb money laundering and terror financing and whatever is in our interest we will continue to do so.”
