The news comes after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan met United States President Donald Trump in Davos this week
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. (File Photo: IANS)
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog for terror funding may remove Pakistan from the punitive “grey list” in its upcoming review meeting. It is being reported that the France-based organisation is ‘satisfied’ with Pakistan’s efforts to crack down on terror funding and money laundering.
Pakistan has gained support from the United States and other western countries at a meeting of the Asia Pacific Joint Group of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Beijing on Wednesday.
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Last year FATF had reprimanded Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by the next plenary in February 2020 and asserted that in an otherwise situation, it would take action including urging members to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relations/transactions with Islamabad.
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Contrary to expectations of Pakistan making it out of the grey list, the neighbouring country has multiple changes in the politics of south Asian countries to thank for.
According to The Indian Express, Pakistan had an important role in brokering a ceasefire deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, negotiated this week at Doha with a US official team led by Zalmay Khalilzad, its special envoy on Afghan reconciliation. It is believed that Pakistan may have also had a role to play in reducing tensions between Iran and the US earlier this month.
FATF’s upcoming plenary meeting in February will be held in Paris where Pakistan is likely to make a case for its exclusion from the grey list. To achieve that, it needs 12 votes out of a total of 39 in Paris; it needs only three to avoid falling into the FATF blacklist.
The news comes after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan met United States President Donald Trump in Davos this week where the two leaders also discussed India’s recent policy changes for Kashmir.
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