By Sachin Parashar in Times of India, Oct 24, 2020
Even while acknowledging “significant progress” made by Pakistan in addressing issues related to terror-financing and money laundering, the global terror watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), on Friday decided to keep the country on its ‘grey’, or ‘increased monitoring’, list. This was mainly due to Pakistan’s failure to address six items, one of which relates to action against UNSC proscribed terrorists like Masood Azhar, in its 27-point action plan to check terror-financing. The agency described as “serious deficiencies” the fact that Pakistan had not yet complied with these points even as it concluded that Islamabad had made progress across all its action plan by “largely” addressing 21 items.
The agency urged Pakistan to “swiftly complete” its action plan by February as all action plan deadlines have already expired. “While Pakistan has made progress, it needs to do more and can’t stop now,” FATF president Marcus Pleyer said after the plenary meeting of the Paris-based agency. Most of the six remaining issues are related to terror-financing. Importantly for India, FATF asked Pakistan to address its strategic deficiencies by demonstrating effective implementation of targeted financial sanctions against all UN 1267 and 1373 designated terrorists and those acting for or on their behalf, preventing the raising and moving of funds including in relation to NPOs (non-profit organisations), identifying and freezing assets (movable and immovable), and prohibiting access to funds and financial services.
India had said on Thursday that Pakistan continued to provide a safe haven to terrorists and that it had not acted against the likes of Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, all proscribed by the UNSC. Asked if Pakistan could be blacklisted if it failed to adhere to the February deadline, Pleyer said the agency gave countries a chance to address issues as long as they showed progress in addressing the action plan and that Pakistan deserved equal treatment. “It’s after that that they are pushed in the black list,” said the official, suggesting the deadline may not be indefinite.
According to the official, the agency could send a team for on-site evaluation if Islamabad is able to address the six points by February. If the evaluation is positive, FATF could consider removing Pakistan from the ‘grey list’. The agency also asked Pakistan to work on implementing its action plan by demonstrating that its law enforcement agencies were identifying and investigating the widest range of terror-financing activities. https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/PrintArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2020%2F10%2F24&entity=ar02810&ts=20201024005220&uq=20201005091238&mode=text
