Pakistan to be placed on grey list of FATF, Foreign Office confirms

Pakistan has confirmed that it will be placed on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June this year.

Foreign Office Spokesman Dr. Mohammad Faisal said on Wednesday, “Pakistan will be assigned to the ‘grey list’ in June, once an Action Plan has been mutually negotiated. The statement that Pakistan will be transferred from the 'grey' to the 'black' list in June this year, is therefore not true. The FATF website clearly demarcates the countries in a 'black' list, as those who are non-cooperative".

Member states of the FATF were persuaded by Washington to place Pakistan back on the “grey list” of nations with inadequate terrorist financing or money laundering controls. Pakistan was on the list for three years, until 2015.

According to the FO spokesperson, FATF had highlighted certain deficiencies in the Anti-Money Laundering and Counterfeiting of Terrorism Financing framework for Pakistan. 

“The Government of Pakistan, over the last few years, has taken a number of measures to address these issues, including through enactment of legislation, issuance of regulations and guidelines by SBP and SECP to the financial sector, establishment of the Financial Monitoring Unit and implementation of UNSC 1267 sanctions on the entities of concern,” said Dr Faisal, adding that Pakistan would take further action to address any remaining deficiencies.

On the other hand, the U.S. military is seeing some “positive indicators” from Pakistan showing it is becoming more responsive to U.S. concerns about militant safe havens in the country but Islamabad has yet to make a strategic shift, a top U.S. general said.