Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has no justification to keep Pakistan on its 'grey list' as his country has completed all technical requirements prescribed by the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.

In a statement carried by Radio Pakistan, Qureshi said Pakistan has conformed to all but one of the conditions given by FATF.

"We had been given 27 points in the FATF Action Plan, out of which work on 26 has been completed," he said.

Work was on to address the remaining item.

"In this situation, there is no justification to keep Pakistan on the 'grey list'," he said.

He accused India of wanting to use the forum for "political purposes"  and said it should not be allowed to do so.

Pakistan has taken solid steps to curb money laundering and terrorist financing, he said.

Qureshi's statement comes as a five-day virtual meeting of the FATF is currently underway in Paris.

The outcomes of the FATF Plenary will be published on June 25, at the close of the meeting.

Earlier this month, The Asia Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering improved Pakistan’s rating on 21 of the 40 technical recommendations of the FATF against money laundering and terror financing but retained it on ‘Enhanced Follow-up’ for sufficient outstanding requirements.

However, the second follow-up report on Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan released by the APG — a regional affiliate of the Paris-based FATF — had also downgraded the country on one criterion. The report had said Pakistan was re-rated to ‘compliant’ status on five counts and 15 others to ‘largely compliant’ and on yet another count to ‘partially compliant’.

Overall, Pakistan was fully ‘compliant’ with seven recommendations and ‘largely compliant’ with 24 others. The country was ‘partially compliant’ with seven recommendations and ‘non-compliant’ with two out of a total of 40 recommendations. All in all, Pakistan was compliant or largely compliant with 31 out of 40 FATF recommendations.

(SAM)