ISLAMABAD: Pakistani law minister Farogh Naseem has said the country had done “everything” to be removed from a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list and Pakistan’s case would now serve as a test of the “fairness” of the global financial watchdog.
Pakistan was placed on FATF’s grey list of countries in 2018 for inadequate terror funding and money laundering controls.
In June this year, FATF President Marcus Pleyer said Islamabad had made “significant progress” but there remained “serious deficiencies” in mechanisms to plug money laundering and terrorism financing.
The country was also handed another seven-point action plan to be implemented along with the original 27 points to exit the grey list.
Speaking to an international media outlet in comments published on Tuesday, Naseem said Pakistan had met 26 out of the 27 action points and now the country was “actually a test of FATF’s fairness.”
“The FATF people are good people. I'm not being critical against them,” the law minister said. “But as long as these (FATF) standards are universally applied, and not applied to only Pakistan, and as long as there is no international politics, then we welcome FATF. Let it be applied to everyone.”
Following the June review, Pakistan said it was committed to complying with the FATF evaluation process.
“It was also noted by FATF member countries that Pakistan is subject to perhaps the most challenging and comprehensive action plan ever given to any country,” Pakistani federal minister Hammad Azhar wrote on Twitter.
Azhar, who was then leading Pakistan’s effort to implement the FATF roadmap, said the country was “subject to dual evaluation processes of FATF with differing time lines.”
Last year, Azhar said FATF had acknowledged that any blacklisting, meaning further downgrading of the country’s status, was off the table now.
But Pleyer said in June the risk of Pakistan being put on the blacklist had not gone, and the country must continue to work on outstanding action points to fix its financial monitoring mechanisms.
Pakistan says done ‘everything’ to get off grey list, now test of FATF ‘fairness’
https://arab.news/5ryfv
Pakistan says done ‘everything’ to get off grey list, now test of FATF ‘fairness’
- Law minister says Pakistan has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on a 2018 action plan by FATF
- Pakistan placed on grey list of countries in 2018 over inadequate money laundering, terror funding controls
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
